As rapidlasso’s LAZ 1.4 makes its way through the process to become an OGC Community Standard, the company has already released a new version of LASzip supporting the new LAS 1.5 format, which includes new features such as improvement of the accuracy of GPS timestamps by introduction of an optional GPS time offset, and WKT2 support, which is crucial for modern coordinate system metadata. LAS 1.5 was released in August 2025 and LAZ 1.5 in December 2025.
LASzip losslessly turns LAS files into compact LAZ files while precisely preserving every single bit. LASzip-compressed LAZ files can be edited directly in their compressed state without needing to be decompressed. LASzip can be downloaded at https://rapidlasso.de/laszip/ and there is also a revised “LAS/LAZ cheat sheet” including LAS/LAZ 1.5 at https://downloads.rapidlasso.de/doc/las_laz_cheatsheet.pdf.
Users can now easily create LAS/LAZ 1.5 files using rapidlasso’s open-source tool *las2las*: las2las64 -i lake.laz -o lake15.laz -set_version 1.5 -v
Functionality for formatting continues to be available free and open source from rapidlasso. So the company takes pride in continuing a tradition: LAZ is without doubt the most relevant contribution to the lidar community of lidar pioneer and rapidlasso’s founder, Dr. Martin Isenburg.
rapidlasso’s flagship product, the LAStools LiDAR Processing Software Suite, is a collection of 55 high-performance, batch-scriptable, command-line tools. Thanks to robust algorithms, efficient I/O, and intelligent memory management, LAStools delivers exceptional throughput for datasets with billions of points. For more information, visit https://rapidlasso.de/.
