zLAS File Format

Files with a zLAS extension are usually the ESRI proprietary LAS compression format. The ESRI LAS Optimizer improves archiving, sharing, and use of LAS format LIDAR. Optimization is accomplished in several ways:

• Lossless compression
• Spatial indexing
• Statistics generation

The compression ratio the optimizer can achieve is typically much better than generic compressors. This is because it’s targeted specifically for LAS. In addition to a high compression ratio, the compression is lossless so you needn’t worry about losing any information. zLAS files are not currently supported in any GeoCue or Terrasolid software so they must first be decompressed to their respective LAS formats.