Download

Current Release(s)

Past Releases

Development Source

The main repository for PDAL is located on github at https://github.com/PDAL/PDAL.

You can obtain a copy of the active source code by issuing the following command

git clone https://github.com/PDAL/PDAL.git

Binaries

In this section we list a number of the binary distributions of PDAL. The table below is intended to provide an overview of some of the differences between the various distributions, as not all features can be enabled in every distribution. This table only summarizes the differences between distributions, and there are several plugins that are not built for any of the distributions. These include Delaunay, MATLAB, MBIO, OpenSceneGraph, RDBLIB, and RiVLib. To enable any of these plugins, the reader will need to install any required dependencies and build PDAL from source.

PDAL Distribution Feature Comparison

Docker

RPMs

Alpine

Conda

Platform(s)

linux

linux

linux

win64, mac, linux

PDAL version

2.5

2.4

2.5

CPD

X

E57

X

X

HDF

X

X

I3S

X

Icebridge

X

X

X

NITF

X

X

pgpointcloud

X

X

X

SLPK

X

TileDB

X

X

Windows

Windows builds are available via Conda Forge (64-bit only). See the Conda for more detailed information.

RPMs

RPMs for PDAL are available at https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/neteler/pdal/.

Alpine

Alpine is a linux distribution that is compact and frequently used with Docker images. Alpine packages for PDAL are available at https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?name=*pdal*&branch=edge.

Users have a choice of three separate packages.

1. pdal will install the PDAL binaries only, and is suitable for users who will be using the PDAL command line applications.

2. pdal-dev will install development files which are required for users building their own software that will link against PDAL.

  1. py-pdal will install the PDAL Python extension.

Note that the PDAL package now resides in Alpine’s edge/community repository, which must be added to your Alpine repositories list. Information on adding and updating repositories can be found in the Alpine documentation.

To install one or more packages on Alpine, use the following command.

apk add [package...]

For example, the following command will install both the PDAL application and the Python extension.

apk add py-pdal pdal

Conda

Conda can be used on multiple platforms (Windows, macOS, and Linux) to install software packages and manage environments. Conda packages for PDAL are available at https://anaconda.org/conda-forge/pdal.

Conda installation instructions can be found on the Conda website. The instructions below assuming you have a working Conda installation on your system.

Users have a choice of two separate packages.

  1. pdal will install the PDAL binaries and development files.

  2. python-pdal will install the PDAL Python extension.

To install one or more Conda packages, use the following command.

conda install [-c channel] [package...]

Because the PDAL package (and it’s dependencies) live in the Conda Forge channel, the command to install both the PDAL application and the Python extension is

conda install -c conda-forge pdal python-pdal gdal

It is strongly recommended that you make use of Conda’s environment management system and install PDAL in a separate environment (i.e., not the base environment). Instructions can be found on the Conda website.