LiDARch - Automated LiDAR Processing Tool for Archaeological Purposes (Portable version)

LiDARch is an educational tool that automates LiDAR point cloud processing workflows for archaeological applications. This project was developed as part of academic coursework to demonstrate the integration of existing geospatial tools into a streamlined processing pipeline.

> Run the tool: Dowload LIDARch folder, unzip it in your Desktop and click in LiDARch.exe. This will  prompt the program. To use it, just select the folder with LiDAR data (LAS/LAZ) and click on "start processing" button. It will automatically generate 4 visualisation outputs from LiDAR LAS/LAZ files.

> Note: This is an academic project that orchestrates third-party tools (QGIS, SAGA GIS, LAStools, RVT). It is provided for educational purposes only. This version of the software is a portable version with all the libraries included. It is an extension of a previous version which can be found here: https://github.com/MCarreroPazos/LiDARch (zenodo.org/records/18302088)

> Note: It uses libraries from QGIS, SAGA GIS, LASTOOLS and RVT to process LiDAR data. Special thanks to the developers and maintainers of these tools for making archaeological LiDAR processing accessible.

This project integrates the following excellent tools:

• QGIS Project (https://qgis.org) - Open-source GIS platform
•  SAGA GIS (http://www.saga-gis.org) - Terrain analysis tools
• LAStools (https://rapidlasso.de/lastools/) - LiDAR processing utilities by rapidlasso
• RVT (Relief Visualization Toolbox) (https://github.com/EarthObservation/RVT) - Archaeological visualization methods
• CustomTkinter (https://github.com/TomSchimansky/CustomTkinter) - Modern GUI framework

> After processing, LiDARch generates:

Proyecto_LiDARch_[timestamp]/

├── MDT_geotiff/
│   └── MDT_merged.tif          # Digital Terrain Model
├── RVT_visualizations/
│   ├── hillshade.tif           # Hillshade visualization
│   ├── local_relief_model.tif  # Local Relief Model (SLRM)
│   ├── sky_view_factor.tif     # Sky View Factor
│   └── local_dominance.tif     # Local Dominance
├── lidar_merged/
│   └── merged_cloud.las        # Merged point cloud
└── technical_report.txt        # Processing summary

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If you use this tool in your research or teaching, please cite:

Carrero-Pazos, M. (2026). LiDARch: Automated LiDAR Processing Tool for Archaeological Applications. An educational scripting project. MA in Archaeology and Sciences of Antiquity, Geoespatial Technologies course. GitHub: https://github.com/MCarreroPazos/LiDARch

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Disclaimer: This software is provided "as is" for educational purposes. Always validate results for actual archaeological work. LLMs have been used to create and deployed this tool