Guide
E57, LAS, LAZ, COPC, PLY, and XYZ in plain English — what each one is, where it comes from, and when to reach for it.
The main point cloud formats are E57, LAS, LAZ, COPC, PLY, and XYZ. E57 is the vendor-neutral laser-scanner format; LAS is the open ASPRS LiDAR standard and LAZ is its compressed form; COPC is LAZ reorganized for streaming; PLY comes from photogrammetry and 3D scanning; XYZ is plain text. Pointscape opens all of them on iPhone and iPad.
A point cloud is a set of 3D points — often millions or billions of them — captured by a laser scanner, LiDAR sensor, or photogrammetry pipeline. The format is simply how those points (and their color, intensity, and other attributes) are written to a file. Picking the right one matters for file size, what metadata survives, and which tools can open it.
Below is each major format, what it is good at, and the typical tools that produce it. Every one of them opens directly in Pointscape on iPad and iPhone.
.e57 — ASTM E2807
An open, vendor-neutral format for terrestrial laser-scan data. E57 can hold point coordinates, per-point color and intensity, and the panoramic imagery captured by the scanner, which makes it the standard way to exchange scans between different vendors' software.
Open E57 on iPad →.las — ASPRS standard
The open LiDAR format maintained by the ASPRS. LAS 1.4 stores precise coordinates plus rich per-point attributes: intensity, GPS time, return number, and a classification code that labels points as ground, building, vegetation, water, and more. It is the backbone of survey and GIS LiDAR.
Open LAS on iPad →.laz — compressed LAS
The losslessly compressed version of LAS, created by the open-source LASzip project. It stores exactly the same points and attributes, typically at 10–20% of the size, which makes it the practical choice for sharing scans and opening them on a mobile device.
Open LAZ on iPad →.copc.laz — Cloud Optimized Point Cloud
A valid LAZ file whose points are reorganized into a clustered octree, with an index that lets a viewer stream only the parts it needs over HTTP range requests. It is the point-cloud equivalent of a Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF, and it is what makes exploring billions of points on a phone practical.
Stream COPC on iPad →.ply — Polygon File Format
A flexible format that stores arbitrary per-point properties — for point clouds, usually XYZ plus per-point color and surface normals. It is the default export of most photogrammetry and 3D-scanning software, and comes in human-readable ASCII and compact binary variants.
Open PLY on iPad →.xyz — plain text
The simplest point cloud format: a text file where each line lists a point's X, Y, and Z, sometimes with intensity or color. It has no formal standard, which makes it universal but large and slow to parse compared with binary formats. It is most useful as a lowest-common-denominator export.
Open XYZ on iPad →Quick reference
| Format | Extension | Typical source | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| E57 | .e57 | Terrestrial laser scanners | Vendor-neutral exchange with color |
| LAS | .las | Aerial & mobile LiDAR | Survey/GIS with classification |
| LAZ | .laz | Compressed LiDAR | Sharing & mobile viewing |
| COPC | .copc.laz | Cloud-hosted datasets | Streaming billions of points |
| PLY | .ply | Photogrammetry & scanning | Color + normals output |
| XYZ | .xyz | Simple/custom exports | Universal plain-text points |
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