[engmgrmgr]

This isn’t true; LiDAR points provide an intensity value that provides information about surface material and ambient environment. Further, this information is influenced by angle and distance.

Lane lines and road signs in particular typically use reflective paints that are very easy to detect in LiDAR, but beyond that, you can approximate material composition of a LiDAR scene pretty easily.

Another big point you’re missing is that LiDAR can provide control points to photometric sensor fusion systems. While there are also purely photo based control point matching systems, they’re much more complex and require nontrivial offline preprocessing.