How To Install PDAL on CentOS 8

PDAL is Point Data Abstraction Library

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install PDAL on CentOS 8.

What is PDAL

PDAL is a BSD licensed library for translating and manipulating point cloud data of various formats. It is a library that is analogous to the GDAL raster library. PDAL is focused on reading, writing, and translating point cloud data from the ever-growing constellation of data formats. While PDAL is not explicitly limited to working with LiDAR data formats, its wide format coverage is in that domain. PDAL is related to Point Cloud Library (PCL) in the sense that both work with point data, but PDAL\u2019s niche is data translation and processing pipelines, and PCL\u2019s is more in the algorithmic exploitation domain. There is cross over of both niches, however, and PDAL provides a user the ability to exploit data using PCL\u2019s techniques.

We can use yum or dnf to install PDAL on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install PDAL.

Install PDAL on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install PDAL using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install PDAL

Install PDAL on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install PDAL using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install PDAL

How To Uninstall PDAL on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the PDAL package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove PDAL

PDAL Package Contents on CentOS 8

/usr/bin/pdal
/usr/lib/.build-id
/usr/lib/.build-id/8d
/usr/lib/.build-id/8d/d6f959d1a36c2bae044025af4df1e39d7d59b7

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install PDAL on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.