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<p>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. <br>
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Doug<br>
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Doug Newcomb <br>
USFWS<br>
Raleigh, NC<br>
919-856-4520 ext. 14 doug_newcomb@fws.gov<br>
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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.<br>
<img width="16" height="16" src="cid:1__=0ABBFC8FDFD3C6458f9e8a93df938690@fws.gov" border="0" alt="Inactive hide details for Eric Wolf <ebwolf@gmail.com>">Eric Wolf <ebwolf@gmail.com><br>
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<ul><b><font size="2">Eric Wolf <ebwolf@gmail.com></font></b><font size="2"> </font><br>
<font size="2">Sent by: discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</font>
<p><font size="2">08/20/2009 04:53 PM</font>
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<font size="2">Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms</font></td></tr>
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<font size="4">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!</font><br>
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<font size="4">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.</font><br>
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<font size="4">-Eric</font><br>
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Eric B. Wolf New! 720-334-7734<br>
USGS Geographer<br>
Center of Excellence in GIScience<br>
PhD Student <br>
CU-Boulder - Geography<br>
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<font size="4">On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Landon Blake <</font><a href="mailto:lblake@ksninc.com"><u><font size="4" color="#0000FF">lblake@ksninc.com</font></u></a><font size="4">> wrote:</font>
<ul><font color="#000080" face="Arial">Eric,</font>
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<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial">The imagery I am talking about is from the USDA APFO:</font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial"> </font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial"> </font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial">This FAQ contains a snippet about the format:</font>
<p><a href="http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/apfoapp?area=home&subject=prog&topic=nai" target="_blank"><u><font color="#0000FF" face="Arial">http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/apfoapp?area=home&subject=prog&topic=nai</font></u></a>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial"> </font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial">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.</font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial"> </font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial">It appears that you can also download the county mosaics online.</font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial"> </font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial">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. :]</font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial"> </font>
<p><b><font color="#000080" face="Arial">Landon</font></b>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial">Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268</font>
<p><font color="#000080" face="Arial">Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658</font>
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<b><font face="Tahoma">From:</font></b><font face="Tahoma"> </font><a href="mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank"><u><font color="#0000FF" face="Tahoma">discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</font></u></a><font face="Tahoma"> [mailto:</font><a href="mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank"><u><font color="#0000FF" face="Tahoma">discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</font></u></a><font face="Tahoma">] </font><b><font face="Tahoma">On Behalf Of </font></b><font face="Tahoma">Eric Wolf</font><b><font face="Tahoma"><br>
Sent:</font></b><font face="Tahoma"> Thursday, August 20, 2009 1:15 PM</font><b><font face="Tahoma"><br>
To:</font></b><font face="Tahoma"> OSGeo Discussions</font><b><font face="Tahoma"><br>
Subject:</font></b><font face="Tahoma"> Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary Algorithms</font>
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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font>
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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-Eric</font>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br>
-=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=-<br>
Eric B. Wolf New! 720-334-7734<br>
USGS Geographer<br>
Center of Excellence in GIScience<br>
PhD Student <br>
CU-Boulder - Geography<br>
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</font>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Landon Blake <</font><a href="mailto:lblake@ksninc.com" target="_blank"><u><font size="4" color="#0000FF" face="Times New Roman">lblake@ksninc.com</font></u></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">> wrote:</font>
<p><font face="Arial">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.</font>
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<p><font face="Arial">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.</font>
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<p><font face="Arial">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.</font>
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<p><font face="Arial">Landon</font>
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