PDAL/PDAL: 2.1.0

Changes of Note

• The X, Y and Z dimensions are now always stored internally as double-precision floating point. This was normally case previously, but it is now enforced. (#2892)
• The interface include file directory is now set for downstream projects using cmake, eliminating the need to explicitly set the location of PDAL header files. (#2262)
• PDAL is now always built using the arbiter library, which is included in the source distribution.
• filters.python has been removed from the primary PDAL library and is part of the PDAL python library.
• When the bounds option of filters.crop represents a 3D volume, the filter now does 3D cropping, rather than 2D cropping as in previous releases. (#2904)
• writers.ply no longer accepts default as a valid value for the storage_mode option. (#2385)

• Support has been added for range-based iteration of PointView objects. The dereferenced iterator yields a PointRef object.
• We are now providing private header files as part of the distribution. The API exposed by these files may change or be eliminated in a future release. Use of these files may require the installation of the header files from other packages. The symbols for some of these functions may not be public, especially on Windows.
• There are now enumerations for classifications (pdal::ClassLabel).
• N-dimensional KD-tree support has been added.
• There are some small API changes (const changes, for example), but almost all code using the PDAL library should build without modification.
• We do not guarantee ABI compatibility, though in most cases this release should be backward compatible.

• filters.voxeldownsize provides streamed support for voxel filtering. (#2699 - Thanks Helix.re!)
• filters.separatescanline splits input into separate output point views based on associated scan lines. (#2724 - Thanks Guilhem Villemin)
• filters.farthestpointsampling add points from the input to the output one-at-a-time by selecting the point in the input that is the furthest from any point in the output. (#2761)
• filters.skewnessbalancing classifies ground points using the method of Bartels. (#2740)
• filters.dbscan provides density-based clustering. (#2748)
• filters.csf provides ground classification of points using the cloth simulation method of Zhang. (#2765)
• readers.hdf provides generic support for many HDF files. (#2934)
• filters.hag_nn, filters.hag_delaunay and filters.hag_dem have been created to replace filters.hag. (#2886)

• filters.hag is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Use filters.hag_nn, filters.hag_delaunay and filters.hag_dem instead.

• readers.sqlite and writers.sqlite

• readers.ept now supports the headers and query options to be forwarded to remote endpoints. (#2690)
• readers.ept now supports multipolygons for point filtering. (#2758)
• readers.ept now supports asynchronous operation when streaming. (#2772)
• readers.ept now supports filtering via OGR queries. (#2295)
• writers.ept now supports Zstandard compression. (#2561)
• writers.gdal now supports a power option that can be used to impact the output of inverse distance weighting mode. (#2550)
• Eliminated an error as exception in readers.e57 in order to improve performance. (#2721)
• readers.rxp now supports reading the EdgeOfFlightLine dimension. (#2367)
• filters.randomize now has a seed option to initialize the random number generator. (#2736)
• filters.rdb and filters.rxp now support fetching data from remote sources.
• filters.hexbin now has the option smooth, to smooth generated geometry, and preserve_topology that forces creation of valid geometry during the smoothing operation.
• filters.transformation now has a spatialreference option to set the spatial reference of output data. (#2796)
• filters.overlay now uses the same point-in-polygon algorithm used by filters.crop. (#2812)
• writers.tiledb now supports TileDB attribute filters. (#2828)
• Output from pdal translate can now be directed to the null device by using either devnull or /dev/null as the output filename. (#2835)
• filters.transformation now supports providing a filename as the matrix option if the referenced file contains a matrix that matches the format supported inline. (#2856)
• writers.las now allows specification of a filesource_id as an option. (#2862)
• readers.text now handles quoted dimension names in a header line. (#2201)
• pdal info now reports the reader used for a file, the current time and the size of the file. (#2900)
• filters.reprojection now supports the options in_axis_ordering and out_axis_ordering to allow the matching feature in GDAL 3+ be accessed. (#2916)
• filters.normal added the refine option to re-orient normal vectors using a minimum spanning tree. (#2860)

• readers.e57 and writers.e57 now build cleanly on Windows.
• writers.pgpointcloud no longer uses the wrong schema when creating a new database and there is an existing database using the same SRS. (#2692)
• Fixed a potential crash when destroying logs on shutdown. (#2702)
• Fixed a case where filters.voxelcentroidnearestneighbor could return points for a voxel that weren't actually in the voxel. (#2703)
• Fixed a typo in the alternate names of the NormalY dimension. (#2723)
• filters.divider now handles empty input. (#2727)
• An error in calculating variance, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis has been fixed in filters.stats. (#2790)
• An error where a list of dimensions would be expanded improperly in writers.ply under certain API uses. (#2791)
• Crashes in filters using the delaunay triangulation code have been fixed. (#2805)
• writers.pcd now always writes dimension names as lowercase. (#2789)
• The extended VLR offset was not being written to LAS files. This has been fixed. (#2823)
• Fixed some small memory leaks.
• filters.elm now works properly when input is an empty point view. (#2921)
• filters.pmf now classifies all points either as "Ground" or "Unclassified". Points are no longer marked as "Created, Never Classified". (#2898)
• LAS VLRs specified in a pipeline are now properly handled by writers.las. (#2937)
• When not building with LASzip or LAZperf, writers.las would fail to properly set a spatial reference in some cases. This has been fixed.
• writers.las now always uses WKT version 1. In the previous release it may have used WKT version 2 in some cases. (#2943)
• A bug in pdal tile where the input spatial reference wasn't set on the output has been fixed. (#2976)