Hi all, did anyone seen the mail, (Fwd: RE: [Fwd: ECW licence]) passed on the qgis-dev list, sent by Paolo and the following answer by Tim?
Is this finally a real step forward to have gdal compiled and packaged with ecw (and mrsid) support? -- Giovanni -- On Sat, 2009-05-16 at 12:38 +0200, Agustin Lobo wrote: > The problem is, as I understand it, that Juan is not using Windows but > Linux. And while > ECW&Mrsid support is simply added by > the user to the current binary distribution of qgis > for windows (i.e., see > http://sites.google.com/site/eospansite/qsig-for-windows ) > getting the same support for qgis installed from binaries for linux is > simply impossible. > You must go through the much more cumbersome > process of > (1) Compiling gdal with support for ecw and Mrsid > (2) Compiling qgis with that particular gdal > > Certainly, not a 5 minutes task (in particular for users who just don't even > know what compiling means...) > > So, effectively, regarding qgis, linux users are in disadvantage. Or, in > other > words, for a regular user of qgis, using windows is better. An astonishing > contradiction for gnu software. > > The roots of the problem are in gdal, it's true. But the branches are in > qgis > and, after having exchanged messages in the gdal list > http://n2.nabble.com/Tickets-2385-and-2683-(ECW-and-MrSID-plugins)-tt2767156.html#none > I'm convinced that the problem will not be solved unless the communities > behind > programs using gdal get involved. > > Agus > > Tim Sutton wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA1 > > > > Hi > > > > Alex Mandel wrote: > > > >> Juan Pedro Pérez Alcántara wrote: > >> > >>> Hello, > >>> > >>> perhaps this is a silly one, but I'm quite frustrated with conversions > >>> from popular raster formats in the Windows/ArcGIS world to the > >>> Linux/QGIS one. For example, ECW and MrSID are most popular. I think > >>> JPEG2000 should be a good candidate for a raster format in QGIS. As far > >>> as I know, it is fast (piramidized by nature, so to say), > >>> georreferenced, and they work flawlessly and smoothly (my experience, at > >>> least) in QGIS. Perhaps all of you, much experienced than me for sure, > >>> think that JPEG2000 is not the way and that GeoTIFF or whatever should > >>> do the job. If it is so, I'll stick obviously to that option instead. > >>> > >>> I have been messing around with quite a bunch of libraries to deal with > >>> the conversion. First, there is GDAL, with which I'm able to transform > >>> ECW to almost any GeoTIFF or JPEG that works with QGIS very well, and > >>> with JPEG compression, not so far in size from the ECW source. But then > >>> I tried to use ImageMagick and/or Jasper to convert to JPEG2000, and > >>> here is where I get stuck. I stripped off in gdal_translate the GeoTIFF > >>> tags with BASELINE, but to no avail in ImageMagick, it says always (with > >>> TIFF, JPEG, etc.) that it cannot write the image. Same with JASPER: I > >>> tried to convert from a gdal_translated jpeg, but without result. What > >>> is that I'm missing? Do you have a proven workflow to do this job? > >>> > >>> And with MrSID... not experimented by now, but I tremble only thinking > >>> in that :) > >>> > >>> Perhaps I'm too obsessed with size (file sizes, I mean!!! :) ), and I'm > >>> messing around too much with that subject, when GeoTIFF is providing > >>> good results with a slight size increase. Given the size of hard drives > >>> today (and that I'm not in the massive storage business in the GIS > >>> scene), I think is a fair trade-off for an easy and straightforward > >>> conversion workflow. I'd like very much to hear your opinions about > >>> this. > >>> > >>> Thanks in advance, this is my first post. QGIS is great and thanks to it > >>> and we have almost left behind the so-called industrial standard in GIS. > >>> Congratulations for the great job. > >>> > >>> Greetings from Spain, > >>> > >>> Juan Pedro Pérez Alcántara > >>> > >>> > >> I think I'm a little confused, if you have GDAL compiled with ECW and > >> MrSID format these should open in QGIS. Note the most recent version of > >> the windows QGIS standalone is shipping with MrSID support. > >> > >> FYI, the MrSID license is more open, and LizardTech is a sponsor of OSGEO. > >> > >> Alex > >> > > > > Also note that if you want ECW support in windows builds of QGIS 1.0.2 > > or 1.1.0, you can simply download the ECW dlls from Erdas (by getting > > the SDK) and place the dlls into the Quantum GIS/bin directory. We could > > not include them in the installer by default for licensing reasons, but > > by adding those dlls its pretty easy to get it working. > > > > Also note that in my testing the JASPER jp2 raster loading via GDAL is > > quite slow (frustratingly slow really) on the only real performant way > > to use a wavelet compressed raster at this stage is to use the Kakadu, > > Mr Sid or ECW drivers (all of which are proprietary software). > > > > Lastly it is probably more appropriate to use gdal_translate to convert > > between raster formats than imagemagick, since gdal's conversions are > > 'spatially aware' and will retain all georeferencing etc. data in the image. > > > > Regards > > > > > > - -- > > > > Tim Sutton - QGIS Project Steering Committee Member (Release Manager) > > ============================================== > > Please do not email me off-list with technical > > support questions. Using the lists will gain > > more exposure for your issues and the knowledge > > surrounding your issue will be shared with all. > > > > Visit http://linfiniti.com to find out about: > > * QGIS programming and support services > > * Mapserver and PostGIS based hosting plans > > * FOSS Consulting Services > > Skype: timlinux > > Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net > > ============================================== > > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > > Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) > > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > > > iEYEARECAAYFAkoObWoACgkQqk07qZdiYjdwIgCgxjUcclETxhPUyEIGe1I0g3we > > wLUAoNRC76Yr8HidvU8ARTXxSByzwS1b > > =8R/D > > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > _______________________________________________ > > Qgis-user mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Qgis-user mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user _______________________________________________ Qgis-user mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
