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’s niche is data translation and processing pipelines, and
PCL’s 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’s techniques.