Research Software paper: py4dgeo – Quantification of environmental changes from 3D point clouds

3D change analyses spanning multiple time points require specialized methods and often exceed the capabilities of conventional point cloud software. The py4dgeo software bundles such methods into a user-friendly Python library. It supports registration, change detection and time series analysis, and is easily extensible thanks to its modular architecture. Supporting standardized formats, py4dgeo can be flexibly integrated into existing analysis workflows and seamlessly connected with other tools. The close collaboration between domain scientists and research software engineers at the Scientific Software Centre (SSC) has been instrumental in making py4dgeo a truly successful project. Particular focus is placed on reproducibility, extensibility and sustainable software best practices. The development team, spread across several institutions – including the 3DGeo Research Group at Heidelberg University – has now published a paper explaining the motivation, functionality and design of the software and highlighting specific application examples. The aim is to advertise the open-source software within the research community and to invite researchers to contribute their methods.

Publication:
Anders, K., Kempf, D., Albert, W., Andriushchenko, P., Huang, X., Hulskemper, D., Isensee, T., Kapitan, D., Tabernig, R., Weiser, H., Winiwarter, L., Zahs, V., & Höfle, B. (2026). py4dgeo: Open-source scientific software for topographic change analysis in 3D/4D geographic point clouds. SoftwareX, 34, 102670. 

py4dgeo was an initiative of the 3DGeo Research Group and is now developed in collaboration with TU Munich and the SSC.