Pyramiding LAS Files

Like many GIS data sources, LAS files can be pyramided to provide faster display of points. The pyramids work similarly to image pyramids where the resolution or density of points increases as you zoom in on the map. The pyramiding process requires a thinning factor that determines the number of levels in the pyramid. The higher the thinning factor the more changes you will see in the point densities as the map is zoomed in. With a lower thinning factor, point densities will appear to change much more gradually in the map as the you zoom in. The lowest possible thinning factor is "2", but note that such a small thinning factor creates pyramid data approximately equal in size to the actual LAS files, effectively doubling the amount of data on disk. Higher values for thinning factors will create much smaller pyramid files. We recommend an intermediate thinning factor of 16.

How to Pyramid LAS Files

1. Right click on an LAS file label or an existing selection in the LAS Files Contents View.
   
   How to select LAS Files

2. Click on the Pyramid File(s)... command.

3. Input an integer greater than or equal to 2.

4. Click OK to begin pyramiding.

5. A confirmation dialog will display once the pyramiding is complete. Click OK.

Tip

• To pyramid all LAS files without selecting each file, right click on the LIDAR Layer label and select "Pyramid All Files...".
  
• Terrestrial or Ground based LIDAR files should be processed using the LDReorder command line program first before pyramiding. The LDReorder program can be found in the "Common Files\LP360 folder" of the installation path.