[OSGeo-Discuss] Can I do the same GIS tasks with OS (as with ESRI)?

[John Callahan]

A few things...

- As you alluded to, it's very easy to create a seamless mosaic, or a 
raster catalog.  And pyramids (overviews) and statistics are created 
automatically, if you like.  The same loading process works if you have 
a one IMG file at 2 GB, or 100 JPEGs at 100 MB each, or 2000 TIFs at 200 
MB each.  (size limitations based upon your backend database.)

- The loading process is simply using ArcCatalog and easy built in 
tools. Or using a command line function (sderaster -o mosaic) wrapped in 
a script.  Or, any ArcObjects code you write (if you can figure that 
out!)    For one file, you simply right-click and say Load into ArcSDE.

- It's also nice to use the same storage mechanism for both vectors and 
rasters, for shared daily GIS use within my group, and for production 
web apps.  And performance is very good in an all-ESRI solution (I 
haven't tried with non-ESRI clients)


Problems come in because ArcGIS Desktop crashes quite often when dealing 
with large datasets.  It's slow and unreliable. Did you ever try to load 
a bunch of rasters just to have it crash 3 days later?  The statements I 
mentioned above work very well for small datasets and touch-and-go with 
larger data.  The ArcSDE and RDBMS work great, it's the clients that 
break down and are slow.  I also don't want to deal with the headaches 
of managing Oracle (it's a beast!) and, obviously, I don't want to deal 
with the extremely high costs of an Oracle/ESRI solution. 

I also want to share applications, share code, run the same products at 
home or at work, and run on multiple platforms.  FOSS geo software fall 
more in line with my philosophical beliefs. I work at a university and 
it costs me very little for Oracle and ESRI products (for university 
related projects), and I still want to implement open source!

- John




Paul Ramsey wrote:
>>  3) Storage and serving of very large (50+ GB) raster datasets.  PostGIS
>> does not support rasters yet; Oracle Spatial does though.  I'm still not
>> sure if storing rasters in a database is a good idea but ArcSDE sure makes
>> it easy, and with good performance when used in conjunction with other ESRI
>> products.
>>     
>
> John,
>
> What is it about ArcSDE and raster that makes it easy? I have no
> experience with it, but there must be something about the process that
> seems easier to you than other options do. Is it just the clarity of
> the process? (you do a, b, c, and d, and then voila, it's all a
> seamless mosaic?) Or is there something else?
>
> P
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