We had an ArcGIS LiDAR processing toolbox since April 2012 and now we have one for QGIS as well. It has been tested successfully with QGIS 1.8.0-Lisboa, 2.0.1-Dufour, 2.2.0-Valmiera, and 2.4.0-Chugiak. Download and install QGIS. For version 2.2.0-Valmiera and older follow all the steps. Do not delete or copy any files for the newest version 2.4.0-Chugiak but skip directly to step 4 and disregard most of step 6:
- If you already started QGIS then exit the application.
- Put the ".\lidar" folder that is inside this ZIP file into its place. This ZIP file only works for QGIS 2.2.0-Valmiera. For QGIS 2.0.1-Dufour you need to use the contents of this ZIP file instead. And for QGIS 1.8.0-Lisboa use this ZIP file and delete the folder "C:\Users\Martin\.qgis\python\plugins\sextante\lidar" instead.
- Get the most recent version of LAStools by downloading the 20 MB "lastools.zip" file.
- Drag and drop (or extract) the ".\lastools" folder from inside the 'lastools.zip' file such that there is no space in the path (e.g. bad: "C:\Program Files\lastools", good: "D:\software\lastools").
- Start QGIS. If there is a Python script error carefully repeat steps 1 to 3.
- Look at the file you just created by running lasview from the toolbox. Yay!
Kudos to Victor Olaya for creating this whole framework and providing me with example scripts for a simple LAStools toolbox that I just had to modify ... (-:
