[Gdal-dev] Do I need to write adriver with that?

[Oliver Eichler]

Hi Frank

> A lot depends on the nature of the source data.  If the image data is
> regularly laid out on disk, it may be sufficient to write one of the
> various "raw header" files such as the .aux for the PAux driver.

Well it's the GeoGrid format used by EADS. This is pretty similar to blocked geotiff data. 

> 
> If you need to use code to read your source file (compressed,oddly
> laied out, etc) then you will have to do more.  It could be a small
> standalone utility that writes out some GDAL compatible format (such
> as raw+header) or you could implement a driver within GDAL.  In part

Thus, if I get you correctly, data always have to be read via file into GDAL. There is no direct API approach.

> it depends on how seamlessly you want the format to work with GDAL
> applications.  If a one time translation is all that is needed writing
> a proper GDAL driver would likely be overkill.

That is what I thought, too. As I have to patch GDAL's source to add a driver it would just make sense if it gets into the official source tree. But I am not sure if you like that. I do not know too much for sure about the format and lack a map database to verify the many assumptions and features of the format. 

I will give the raw intermediate files a try. I hope they do not get too big :)

Thanks for help

Oliver