The USDA makes aerial photography available for many counties in United
States. You can acquire a natural color mosaic for most of these
counties for $50.00.
We recently discovered that these mosaics are only made available in
MrSID format. The mosaics are very large files and you need to purchase
LizardTech's GeoExpress or other commercial software to "cut" up the
MrSID images into more manageable chunks. (A license of GeoExpress runs
about $300.00.) The full-county mosaics run about $50.00. If you want to
purchase the individual tiles in GeoTiff format you are going to pay a
lot more. (The price for our county was quoted at $2100.00)
I am curious what other wankers think about the USDA's decision to offer
this imagery acquired with public funds in a format that has no
published specification and for which you need to purchase commercial
software to manipulate. I realize that there some compression advantages
to MrSID, but why not use a more common image format? Why not use a
format with an open specification?
When I consider the price difference between the mosaics and the
individual tiles, it sure seems like this system is set up in
LizardTech's favor. Is someone from LizardTech paying for the tropical
vacations of some USDA officials, or am I completely missing something?
Landon
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