The provided dockerfile allows easy building. It is based on Ubuntu22.04.

Be sure to have the latest Docker installed in your system. To build the raycloudtools image, run:

docker build -f Dockerfile -t raycloudtools .

Or on Windows:

docker build -f Dockerfile.txt -t raycloudtools .

This image will download and compile raycloudtools and all its dependencies (including treetools, so you can process rayextract outputs). You can then run the raycloudtools image as a standalone executable. The basic command is docker run -v your/local/datadir:/data raycloudtools followed by the specific tool you want to use, as in:

docker run -v your/local/datadir:/data raycloudtools rayimport

Here's an example of a pipeline to process a forest plot:

# create a local directory where to store your data and the raycloudtools outputs
mkdir mydata
cd mydata

# [optional] create a local environment variable with the arguments you 
# want to pass to docker - so you don't have to rewrite it everytime
CMD="run --rm -u $(id -u $USER) -v $PWD:/data raycloudtools"

# generate some sample data
docker $CMD raycreate forest 3

The command above will generate a forest.ply file in your local directory. From there, you can use rayextract to get other products:

docker $CMD rayextract terrain forest.ply

docker $CMD rayextract trunks forest.ply

docker $CMD rayextract forest forest.ply

docker $CMD rayextract trees forest.ply forest_mesh.ply

docker $CMD rayextract leaves forest.ply forest_trees.txt

The outputs from the above commands will be at your local directory. You can visually inspect the ply files using software such as CloudCompare.