[gdal-dev] Re: ESRI file geodatabase support

Duarte Carreira DCarreira at edia.pt
Thu Jun 17 16:29:11 EDT 2010 

Well, if SpatiaLite offers some "proper" benefits and disseminates through all of the FOSS world, then it may get a strong enough push even for ESRI to pick it up. It happened before... (kml?)

If SL would:


1)      Be as fast as shapefile in production settings, desktop and webgis

2)      Offer SQL support, spatial and otherwise, also through desktop tools like QGIS

3)      Allow editing while serving (even if for 1 editor only)

4)      Better support in QGIS than for shapefile (take advantage of Spatial SQL, all other functionality)

5)      Same for MapServer, GeoServer, gvSIG, et al.

6)      Allow easy managing of rasters inside the .db file, through QGIS

7)      ??more ideas/requests??

Then it would be a very, very good contender... and the ball would be kicked to "the other side".
And it seems we're already there for some of the listed features.
Duarte

De: Eric Wolf [mailto:ebwolf at gmail.com]
Enviada: quinta-feira, 17 de Junho de 2010 17:33
Para: Peter J Halls
Cc: gdal-dev at lists.osgeo.org; Matt Wilkie
Assunto: Re: [gdal-dev] Re: ESRI file geodatabase support

Matt's chicken-and-egg point seems dead-on. Except that Jack Dangermond abhors a vacuum and ESRI has been focused on higher-order issues than file formats. They are trying to provide topological constraints in the database (or file) and things like geometric networks (which are really just a set of topologically consistent linear features). The good ol' Shapefile doesn't even come close to cutting the mustard. ArcSDE imposes these on other RDBMS. The Personal Geodatabases did it in MDBs. And the File Geodatabase does it without dependency on Microsoft Jet.

Another way to look at the open spec issue (which echoes ESRIs sentiment) is that it's rather easy to screw up topology constraints. As Peter mentioned, SDE sometimes doesn't like Oracle tables created by GDAL. The format of the tables may be fine - but the topological relations may not be right. I'm betting ESRI created File Geodatabase mainly to get away from the Personal Geodatabase because it was too easy to muck with the MDB in Access and screw up the higher order relationships.

File Geodatabases, like Shapefiles and Personal Geodatabases, are intended as a means to exchange data. You export your data from ArcSDE into one of these formats and give it to someone to use. Shapefiles are stripped of topology. Personal Geodatabases only really work on platforms Microsoft supports. File Geodatabases are the next logical step.

SpatialLite seems like a really strong contender. How do we get ESRI to play along?

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Eric B. Wolf                    New! 720-334-7734
USGS Geographer
Center of Excellence in GIScience
PhD Student
CU-Boulder - Geography

GPG Public Key: http://www.h4h.net/ebwolf.public.key.txt

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 1:21 AM, Peter J Halls <P.Halls at york.ac.uk<mailto:P.Halls at york.ac.uk>> wrote:
Another way to achieve interoperability is via a DBMS for which there is an SDE implementation, although this may not be appropriate for Matt Wilkie's requirements.  It may not be always as easy as with shapefiles but it does not have the limitations.  Having said that, in our Oracle environment I do have a problem getting SDE to recognise some spatial datasets created with GDAL but have yet to prove what is happening to cause this and so cannot point a finger of blame in any direction ...

Best wishes,

Peter


Duarte Carreira wrote:
Matt, the only reason I have seen presented for some reluctance in pushing spatialite as a de facto standard following shapefile's success, is not having a foothold in the closed source sector. That's the only thing ESRI's fgdb could potentially offer, since the extra data types supported will not be available outside ESRI's software (Terrain, Topology, Networks, etc.).

(As for interoperability with ESRI, its users can always export to shapefile. Ofcourse I would prefer to directly read fgdb data but if not possible it's ok too.)

So the question is: is it true that for a new "universal" spatial format to be born it has to have at least read support in the closed source world?

Duarte


-----Mensagem original-----
De: Matt Wilkie [mailto:maphew at gmail.com<mailto:maphew at gmail.com>]
Enviada: terça-feira, 15 de Junho de 2010 22:52
Para: gdal-dev at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:gdal-dev at lists.osgeo.org>
Assunto: [gdal-dev] Re: ESRI file geodatabase support


I think discussing a shapefile successor, or even perhaps a code sprint, is a
very good topic for FOSS4G. This same thread that we're weaving now is/has
happened on a number mailing lists and usually generated dozens of responses
each time. The interest is clear. From my vantage the germinating seed
crystal could be spatialite, but there seems to be some general reluctance
to jump on board. I'm ignorant of the reasons for that, perhaps that will
come out at FOSS4G; wish I could be there!

Ivan: I personally welcome and will use a gdal/ogr that uses the currently
installed arcgis libraries however for the health of the industry I'd like
to see unencumbered access. Thanks for letting me know at least part of my
ramblings are of interest

cheers,

-matt
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