I regularly use the gdal tools and python to convert/reproject the NAIP county mosaics from UTM to NC State Plane in a Quarter Quad format. It really doesn't take that long on a 64-bit linux box with a couple of big hard drives. Once you get things out of MrSid format, things go pretty quickly.
Doug Doug Newcomb USFWS Raleigh, NC 919-856-4520 ext. 14 [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The opinions I express are my own and are not representative of the official policy of the U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service or Dept. of Interior. Life is too short for undocumented, proprietary data formats. Eric Wolf <[email protected] > To Sent by: OSGeo Discussions discuss-boun...@l <[email protected]> ists.osgeo.org cc Subject 08/20/2009 04:53 Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File PM Formats and Proprietary Algorithms Please respond to OSGeo Discussions <[email protected] geo.org> Interesting... I can understand why NAIP was in MRSID. It's a pretty large dataset - and I think .SID was more widely supported than JP2 until recently. The USDA site does provide links to PCI Geomatics FreeView, which can read .SID format but not save it. IrfanView, with a plugin, can read SID format and convert. So it's not a dead-end format. And it sure beats SDTS! I think data interchange and real interoperability has only recently been possible for large raster datasets. It's still a chore if you have to re-project large raster datasets. This may add some content to a research paper I'm working on. -Eric -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=- Eric B. Wolf New! 720-334-7734 USGS Geographer Center of Excellence in GIScience PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Landon Blake <[email protected]> wrote: Eric, The imagery I am talking about is from the USDA APFO: This FAQ contains a snippet about the format: http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/apfoapp?area=home&subject=prog&topic=nai In an interesting turn of events I note that as of 2008, the USDA is releasing the county mosaics in JP2 format, not in MRSID. I am not sure what brought about this change, and I wasn’t aware that it had been made. The same web page indicates that there is a shapefile index for the individual image tiles. It appears that you can also download the county mosaics online. A lot of this has changed (improved) in the last couple of years. I’m glad I checked again. That being said, the principles from our discussion still apply. :] Landon Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 From: [email protected] [mailto: [email protected]] On Behalf Of Eric Wolf Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 1:15 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms The MRSID format is a very special case - and perhaps an opportunity for a new FOSS file format. MRSID is a lossless, fractal-based, multi-scale raster compression format. LizardTech has the algorithms to encode and decode MRSID locked up in copyrights, and I believe, patents. Even companies like ESRI shell out big bucks to LizardTech to be able to read and write the MRSID format. I guess I missed the context of the discussion. Is the government releasing certain data exclusively in this format? If so, I think the argument can be made against this practice. The different in compression between MRSID and gziped TIFFs isn't really that great in this day of cheap disks and fat pipes. -Eric -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=- Eric B. Wolf New! 720-334-7734 USGS Geographer Center of Excellence in GIScience PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Landon Blake <[email protected]> wrote: I realized that publishing a spec for a file format like MRSID isn’t as clear cut as I had at first thought. If the MRSID software uses a fancy top-secret compression/decompression algorithm to move data to and from the file format knowing only the structure of the format would do no good. You’d have to release the details of the algorithm as well. I still don’t think proprietary file formats are a good idea for government data released to the public, but I admit that having a company like LizardTech publish a spec for something like MRSID is not necessarily a simple task. No doubt a lot of time and money goes into developing those algorithms. This makes me wonder about algorithms used to purposefully encrypt binary file formats. That is another can of worms. It looks like the easiest thing to do is to start with a file format that was designed to be open from the very beginning. Landon Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. 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