[OSGeo-Discuss] Open FileFormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Fri Aug 21 12:06:25 PDT 2009

There might be a couple of other holes in the theory that serving images as a service removes the problem of file formats.

To me the biggest hole is the manipulation of data. If I want to do more than just view an image, if I want to manipulate it, then painting it on the screen of my web browser of desktop application via a web-server might not cut it.

I agree that "viewing" is all 90% of the public will want to do. But this may change in the future. Raster data is going to get cheaper, more abundant, more frequently collected, and of better resolution. More and more people are going to be finding new applications for this raster data, and a lot of those applications are going to involve more than "this is what my house looks like from a satellite".

As an example, I heard about one potential application that would count the number of cars in business parking lots with images acquired once a day or multiple times in a day.

I suppose this is like going to the gym. If you buy a gym membership the company that runs the gym worries about the compatibility of all the equipment.

But if you are a serious weight lifter, or you like working out in your garage with your yellow lab (like me), you want weight lifting equipment you can take home. In this case, the type of equipment (and the ability to repair it, replace it, and improve it) becomes a lot more important.

The gym (service) works for a lot of people, but weight lifting equipment you can take home (raster data in a file) will always be important.

Landon
Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268
Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Michael P. Gerlek
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 11:58 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions; Ivan Lucena
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open FileFormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

> Someone earlier in this thread spoke about some of these technologies 
> being somewhat obsolete what with the new network and bandwidth speeds 
> available for publishing.

I think the comment was that by hiding the data behind a server, you can reduce the users' exposure to a myriad of file formats, some possibly proprietary.  It's a good point.

You still need to store the data on the servers, though, so the technologies themselves are by no means obsolete -- it's just a question of who has to deal with them.

-mpg

From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bob Basques
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 12:28 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions; Ivan Lucena
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

All, 

Can someone remind me again, are we talking about saving space, or making it easier to implement something . . .  :c) 

I personally prefer nice simple internal pyramided tiles with indexing, about 10% extra space, and very good performance. 

Someone earlier in this thread spoke about some of these technologies being somewhat obsolete what with the new network and bandwidth speeds available for publishing. 

bobb 

>>> "Lucena, Ivan" <ivan.lucena at pmldnet.com> wrote:
But you can't compress data types other than byte in JPG. Can you do that in JP2K?

>  -------Original Message-------
>  From: Landon Blake <lblake at ksninc.com>
>  Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open FileFormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
>  Sent: Aug 21 '09 12:42
> 
>  Paul,
> 
>  I was wondering the same thing.
> 
>  It seems a little like choosing to drive a Honda Accord, or a Ferrari.
>  The Ferrari is a lot faster and comes with a better looking trophy wife
>  (or husband), but the Honda is a lot easier to fix. (Try finding an
>  affordable Ferrari mechanic in Stockton, California.)
> 
>  To tie this back into our original discussion, it seems like the
>  government should be choosing to drive a Honda Accord when it can,
>  instead of the Ferrari.
> 
>  I guess you'd really have to crunch the numbers and see if the savings
>  in bandwidth/disk space costs were really worth the compression savings
>  that result from a proprietary compression scheme ("wavelet black
>  magic").
> 
>  The problem with this is a lot of the benefits that come from the Honda
>  Accord (open image format + open compression algorithm) aren't easily
>  calculated in dollars and cents.
> 
>  Still, this speaks to an important truth I have discovered in open
>  source development: Simple is better, even when it isn't necessarily
>  faster and smaller.
> 
>  I'd rather have code that I can understand, or a file format that a
>  programmer in 20 years will understand, than a Ferrari you can't drive
>  unless you have a PHD and did a thesis on wavelet compression. :]
> 
>  Landon
>  Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268
>  Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658
> 
> 
> 
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
>  [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paul Ramsey
>  Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 10:36 AM
>  To: OSGeo Discussions
>  Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File
>  FormatsandProprietaryAlgorithms[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
> 
>  So hung up on wavelets, we are.
> 
>  Internally tiled TIFF with JPEG compression and similarly formatted
>  internal overviews can achieve 10:1 compression rates without
>  noticeable image quality reductions, and as an added bonus can be
>  decompressed a heck of a lot faster than wavelet-based formats. The
>  wavelet stuff is k00l, in that there is no need for an overview
>  pyramid (it's implicit in the compression math) and much higher
>  compression rates can be achieved. But operationally, you can go a
>  long way with the more primitive (open image format + open compression
>  algorithm) approach.
> 
>  P.
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