I'm also not too happy about the MrSID-only distribution of the USDA
NAIP imagery. I suppose they'll move toward JPEG2000 someday, but
for now we'll have to live with it.
Also, if you can stomach the website, you can download many of the
NAIP images (and other data) from the USDA Geospatial Data Gateway
<http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/>.
Grab the imagery from the data gateway, grab the SDK from
LizardTech's website, compile GDAL with it, and clip, mash, and chop
to your heart's content with gdal_translate.
Howard
At 04:36 PM 12/6/2006, Landon Blake wrote:
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C71987.0851FCFE"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
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
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. If you have received this information in
error, please notify the sender immediately.
_______________________________________________
Geowanking mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
_______________________________________________
Geowanking mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
