[gdal-dev] FW: gdal_merge.py

[Raphael Das Gupta]

On 28.03.2018 16:31, Marcos Dione wrote:
>     in my opinion, gdal_merge should be used only if the merged version
> will be used for more things or if you're going to use it with something
> that doesn't know how to read the .vrt files (i.e., is not using gdal).
Even then it seems to be faster to first create a (temporary) .vrt file
and then convert that to something else (thereby materializing the
content) with e.g. gdaltranslate. (And then throw away the temporary
.vrt file.)

In my (and others', see e.g.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/22602542/674064) experience, the combined
runtime of gdalbuildvrt and gdaltranslate will be shorter than that of
gdal_merge.py would be. (And the quality of the result might also be
better.)

Though I don't know whether that was just the case for the examples I
encountered so far or whether that's always the case. Also, I don't know
whether there are use-cases of gdal_merge.py that gdalbuildvrt +
gdaltranslate (or + gdalwarp) can't handle.

If not, maybe gdal_merge.py should be reimplemented as a wrapper of
gdalbuildvrt + gdaltranslate, so that the obvious (and most convenient)
choice is also the best one?

Cheers,
Raphael