[OSGeo-Discuss] 'lossless' JPEG2000

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Yup: Kakadu is not Open Source, as per the OSI definition of the term.
The only FOSS package I know of is OpenJpeg2000 (or something like
that); unfortunately, however, it is not suitable for geo-sized imagery
last time I looked.


<TotallyNotSpeakingForLizardTechNoWayNoHow>
Not a week goes by that I do not pause, look out my window, and sigh
quietly over this issue.

Economic realities are such that doing an open JP2 codec for geo folks
would be tough.  Kakadu is "good enough" and "cheap enough" for us
commercial types, which disincentivizes a free version.  Furthermore,
every six months Kakadu comes out with a new release, and the gap widens
further.

Yes, an open version might serve to widen the overall JPEG 2000
marketspace -- but that's not a sure enough thing to merit commercial
people investing money in.

Someday I'd like to try and open a dialog with the OpenJP2 developers
about this topic, but last I heard they were completely uninterested in
supporting GB-sized datasets.
</TotallyNotSpeakingForLizardTechNoWayNoHow>


(LZW tiffs are a reasonable option, as they are lossless and the LZW
patent issues have faded into the sunset.)

-mpg

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org 
> [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of 
> Christopher Schmidt
> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 10:18 AM
> To: discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] 'lossless' JPEG2000
> 
> On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 09:27:22AM -0800, Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
> > Bruce-
> >  
> > Again, I'm not sure how to convince you of this...  JP2 is 
> inherently
> > lossless just like GeoTIFF is; what arguments do you / 
> would you find
> > persuaive to use GeoTIFF?  (alternatively, what do you use 
> now that you
> > trust?)
> 
> I'm late in the game (having been in the Caymans all last week), but I
> find JP2 more difficult than GeoTIFF simply because the open source
> tools for working with JP2 through GDAL seem to be 
> significantly flawed.
> The Kakadau (I think?) JP2 library seems to resolve a lot of this, but
> the end result is not an Open Source tool, so far as I'm aware: this
> matters more in terms of my personal (non-commercial) projects like
> OpenAerialMap, where I can't take a GeoTIFF, reencode it to 
> JP2, and use
> that as my base imagery for 'free', either libre or gratis.
> 
> I have had some success with JPG-compressed GeoTIFFs, but these are
> lossy, and that causes problems (obviously): uncompressed GeoTIFFs are
> also problematic due to their raw size.
> 
> (This answer to the question may be irrelevant, as I'm 
> jumping in in the
> middle of the thread. If so, I apologize.)
> 
> Regards,
> -- 
> Christopher Schmidt
> Web Developer
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