I'm trying to find a free, open-source lidar point cloud viewer for LAS or LAZ files, preferably that are in Python, or one of the C languages, or maybe even web-based, as I would need to add a feature to it where it could receive an input geographic coordinate, find the point cloud LAS or LAZ file that contains that coordinate, and display that point cloud in 3D.
Any suggestions?
A Q&A from a few years ago is available at our GIS site: What LiDAR processing tools are available in Python?, which provides a few answers; and may be a better place to ask.
My answer is: Grass - free, open source, a dozen years old and written in a C language, along with some SQL. It is much faster than ArcGis and contains functions such as:
r.in.lidar - Creates a raster map from LAS LiDAR points using univariate statistics.
r3.in.lidar - Creates a 3D raster map from LAS LiDAR points using univariate statistics.
v.in.lidar - Converts LAS LiDAR point clouds to a GRASS vector map with libLAS.
It should just work™ but if not exactly suitable for your purposes you have the source.
Tutorial: "Processing lidar and UAV point clouds in GRASS GIS".
