LIDAR to Heightfields

[kev2]

The help docs for the Terrains say that "Lidar Import can load LIDAR formats (for example e57) as height fields" but there's no option to convert to a HF that I can find? Am I missing something? 

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/model/heightfields.html

Thanks, Kevin

[StepbyStepVFX]

They say that if you want to work on your Lidar point cloud as a VDB primitive you have first to convert it using Convert VDB Points SOP. 

Under the hood, heigthfields are 2D volumes data , so I guess I would : import your files with Lidar Import, then convert to VDB, then to volume and play with volumes wrangles to transfer data from this volume into a 2D volume called heigth.

That’s not straightforward but it seems this is the only way

[bunker]

You can also use a volumefromattrib SOP to copy the height to the volume
 

Edited June 5, 2018 by bunker

[bunker]

And a simple example file attached this time...

lidar2heightfield_bunker_01.hipnc

[Noobini]

or plain old triangulate2d...

Lidar2HF.hipnc

[kev2]

12 hours ago, bunker said:

You can also use a volumefromattrib SOP to copy the height to the volume
 

VolumeFromAttrib works pretty well. Thanks Illusionist. I also tried VDB route and tiaingulate2d (which I had forgotten about). VDB required a decent amount of fiddling but did a great job and roughly the same memory / time to process as VFA. Trianglate2D became unhappy after a couple millionish points so I didn't get anywhere with it.