Printing file metadata¶
Exercise¶
This exercise uses PDAL to print metadata information. Issue the following command in your Docker Quickstart Terminal.
1 2 | docker run -v /c/Users/Howard/PDAL:/data -t pdal/pdal \
pdal info /data/exercises/info/interesting.las --metadata
|

Note
PDAL metadata is returned a in a tree structure corresponding to processing pipeline that produced it.
See also
Use the JSON processing capabilities of your favorite processing software to selectively access and manipulate values.
- Python JSON library
- jsawk (like
awk
but for JSON data) - jq (command line processor for JSON)
- Ruby JSON library
Notes¶
- PDAL uses JSON as the exchange format when printing information from info. JSON is a structured, human-readable format that is much simpler than its XML cousin.
- The PDAL metadata document contains background and information about specific metadata entries and what they mean.
- Metadata available for a given file depends on the stage that produces the data. Readers produce same-named values where possible, but it is common that variables are different. Filters and even writers can also produce metadata entries.
- Spatial reference system or coordinate system information is a kind of special metadata, and is treated as something primary to a Stage in PDAL.