st_area: Surface covered by a LAS* object

In lidR: Airborne LiDAR Data Manipulation and Visualization for Forestry Applications

Surface covered by a LAS* object

Description

Surface covered by a ⁠LAS*⁠ object. The surface covered by a point cloud is mathematically 0. To compute non zero values the function uses different strategies. The area is computed based on the number of occupied cells, or on the area of the convex hull of the points depending on the density and the size of the point cloud. The result is necessarily an approximation that depends on the method used.
For a LAScatalog it is computed as the sum of the bounding boxes of the files. For overlapping tiles the value may be larger than the total area covered because some regions are sampled twice. For a LASheader it is computed with the bounding box. As a consequence, for the same file st_area applied on a LASheader or on a LAS can return slightly different values. st_area() extends sf:st_area(), area() extends raster:area(). area() is provided for backward compatibility.

Usage

## S3 method for class 'LAS'
st_area(x, ...)

## S3 method for class 'LASheader'
st_area(x, ...)

## S3 method for class 'LAScatalog'
st_area(x, ...)

area(x, ...)

## S4 method for signature 'LAS'
area(x, ...)

## S4 method for signature 'LASheader'
area(x, ...)

## S4 method for signature 'LAScatalog'
area(x, ...)

Arguments

x	An object of class LAS*.
...	unused.

Value

numeric. A number in the same units as the coordinate reference system.

lidR documentation built on Sept. 11, 2024, 5:21 p.m.