[gdal-dev] Creating aux.xml files for GTiff using Python

[Gregory, Matthew]

Hi all,

There have been a few threads on this listserv about ArcGIS not recognizing statistics built into GeoTiffs.  For example, see:

  http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/gdal-dev/2009-September/022044.html

Because GeoTiffs don't build .aux.xml files by default (even with GDAL_PAM_ENABLED set to YES or at least I think this is the case), I'm running into the same issues.  When a GeoTiff is brought into ArcMap, it complains about statistics not being built and then builds them for you.  

Frank's fix, however, in the above thread:

  'gdal_translate -of HFA -co AUX=YES -co STATISTICS=YES xxx.tif xxx.aux'

looks like it first creates the accompanying .aux.xml file for the GeoTiff (e.g. xxx.tif.aux.xml) and then creates two other files xxx.aux and xxx.aux.aux.xml.  When I bring xxx.tif into ArcMap, it correctly reads the statistics and everything is displayed correctly.

My question is whether or not it's possible to force creation of the .aux.xml files through the Python bindings.  I've tried both ComputeBandStats() and ComputeStatistics(False) with no success.

This falls under the category of annoyances, so not a huge issue.

Thanks for pointers.

matt