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GDAL - Geospatial Data Abstraction Library
GDAL is a translator library for raster geospatial data formats
that is released under an
Open Source license. As a library, it presents a
single abstract data
model to the calling application for all supported formats.
Master Page:
http://www.remotesensing.org/gdal/index.html
Maintainer: Frank Warmerdam.
Status
GDAL is in active use in a few projects, and includes a number of formats.
Current translators include GeoTIFF (read/write), Erdas Imagine (read),
ESRI .BIL (read/write), .aux labelled raw (read/write), DTED (read), SDTS
DEM (read), CEOS (read), JPEG (read/write), PNG (read/write),
Geosoft GXF (read) and Arc/Info Binary Grid (read). A full list is
available in Supported Formats.
The gdal-dev@yahoogroups.com
mailing list can be used for discussion of development and user issues related
to GDAL and related technologies. Subscriptions can be done, and archives
reviewed
on the web.
API Documentation
exists for GDAL, and was created using Doxygen.
Bug Reporting
GDAL bugs
can
be reported, and
can be
listed using BugZilla.
Source Access
The GDAL source is available by anonymous CVS:
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.remotesensing.org:/cvsroot
cvs login
Password: anonymous
cvs checkout gdal
Update access to the CVS repository can be obtained by arrangement with
the maintainer. The CVS tree can also be
browsed
on the web. The last full source release is available as
gdal115.zip
or
gdal-1.1.5.tar.gz.
Key Documentation Entry Points
Building
GDAL has been successfully built on Linux, IRIX, Solaris, and Windows NT.
On Unix platforms you might be able to build it as follows (assuming it is
unpacked or checked out of CVS as gdal):
% cd gdal
% ./configure
% make
Some caveats are:
- I depend on GNUmake on Unix platforms. Just get and install it if
you don't already have it.
- The shared library building is pretty specific to the GNU tool chain.
If you are using something different than GNU C++, then you will likely
finding that the .so files isn't built successfully. You could just link
against the static libraries (normally gdal/gdal.a gdal/ogr/ogr.a
gdal/frmts/o/ *.a gdal/gdal.a gdal/port/cpl.a) or you could hack LD_SHARED
command in gdal/GDALmake.opt to work on your platform. For the SGI
a value of "c++ -shared -all" is often suitable.
- GDAL, and it's utilities should now build on Cygwin and other platforms
where shared libraries are not supported. However, to build your own
applications against it, you will need to link against a more extensive
set of libraries. The gdal-config --libs command can be used to
determine the library set.
- My "autoconf" logic that checks for libtiff, libpng and libjpeg isn't too
savvy about versions. If it is using pre-installed versions of these
libraries and this support isn't working, rerun configure with
``--with-png=internal'', ``--with-jpeg=internal'', ``--with-geotiff=internal''
or ``--with-libtiff=internal'' instead.
- To build on IRIX it is generally necessary to hand modify the
GDALmake.opt file resulting from configure, and change "ld -shared"
to "ld -shared -all".
- If you find build problems with one of the format drivers that you
don't care about, just remove the format from the GDAL_FORMATS line
at the bottom of gdal/GDALmake.opt, do a make clean, and make. This will
drop it from the build and default runtime registration.
GDAL can be built on Windows using MS VC++ at the commandline. For this to
work you will normally have to have run the VCVAR32.BAT script that comes
with the compiler, and then do the following:
C:\> CD GDAL
C:\GDAL\> nmake /f makefile.vc
I frequently forget to update the Windows makefiles when I add new files,
so if something comes up missing consider comparing the file lists in the
appropriate makefile.vc against the GNUmakefile or just contact me.
GDAL Utility Programs
The following GDAL utility programs exist current:
- gdal/apps/gdalinfo: Dumps a variety of information about a
dataset to the terminal.
- gdal/apps/gdal_translate: Translate between GDAL formats. The
default output format is GeoTIFF. Limited support for resizing images,
selecting subwindows, and converting between data types.
- gdal/apps/gdaladdo: Add overviews to an existing database.
Binaries of the GDAL utility programs and the shared libraries are
available for
MS Windows
NT/95/98 and
Linux.
Related Information
- My other
projects, many of which are incorporated into GDAL.
- RemoteSensing.ORG: An
organization for cooperative OpenSource work related to remote sensing.
GDAL is hosted at remotesensing.org.
- OGRSpatialReference: My OGR encapsulation of OpenGIS
projection definitions.
- OpenEV: An OpenGL/GTK/Python
based graphical viewer which exclusively uses GDAL for raster access.
- OSSIM:
Another geospatial viewing and analysis environment which uses GDAL as one
of several plugins.
- UMN MapServer:
A popular web mapping application with GDAL support.
- UMN MapServer:
A popular web mapping application with GDAL support.
- Virtual Terrain Project:
The VTP libraries now use GDAL.