[Gdal-dev] Re: [FWTools] GDAL/ORG S-57 & S-63 encyption?

[Frank Warmerdam]

On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:05:24 +0000, James Goodwin
<James.Goodwin at sea.co.uk> wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
> I note that GDAL can load S-57 files and they may be displayed using fwtools.  The majority of commercially available S-57 charts are encypted using the S-63 format.
> 
> Is it possible to access S-63 encrypted S-57 files using GDAL?

James, 

The short answer is no. 

I haven't seen the S-63 name before.  I do have a whack of
documents from Primar (dated 2000) on their encryption system.
Would you happen to know if this is the same thing?  Is S-63 a
form that Primar distributes data in? 

I did investigate the possibility of licensing Primar's toolkit for
accessing their datasets on behalf of a client; however, in the
end we decided against it because it was complicated, not
cross platform, and we were unlikely to be able to enforce the
usage limitations they required. 

Basically, if you receive encrypted data it is mainly because
the provider wants to limit your use of that data to very specific
situations.  Basically, to hardware navigation systems.  They don't
want you to be able to translate the data into other formats 
because then they lose control.  So, it is unlikely that I would be
able to implement S-63 support. 

That said, I would appreciate a few pointers to info on S-63.  Also,
I would encourage you to complain to your data provider about 
their efforts to make their data less useful to you.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent