[gdal-dev] GDAL doesn't read GeoTiff .msk mask file

[Nikolai Bezdna]

Hello gdal devs!

I’ve got an 8-bit 3-band (RGB) GeoTiff file created in ArcGIS and it has a mask file (myfile.tif.msk) along with it, indicating which pixels have "nodata" value. When viewing it in ArcMap, I get “nodata” for masked pixels. But when viewing in QGIS, I get an unmasked raster and masked pixels return pixel values of R G and B bands. Gdalinfo doesn’t return a .tif.msk file in a list of dataset files (however it does return .aux.xml).

My goal is to add an internal mask band to GeoTiff files, so everything is packed within one file, and create a VRT mosaic afterwards. Another option is to use .tif.msk file as is. But I can’t find any options to gdal_translate, or gdalinfo to force gdal use the mask file. There isn’t much gdal documentation regarding .msk files. How can I read mask file with gdal and convert my initial RGB GeoTiff to a GeoTiff with a mask band from it?

Cheers,
Nick