MapServer and MrSID

[Frank Warmerdam]

On 8/25/05, Barry Demchak <vendors at tpsoft.com> wrote:
> Hi, all --
> 
> I am just getting going with MapServer and GIS in general. Please pardon
> the naive question:
> 
> I have been offered the use of a very large aerial photograph that's
> currently accessible by ESRI software. I'm told that the photo is provided
> under MrSID compression.
> 
> Can MapServer take slices from a photo in this form?? If not, what do I
> have  to do to the photo to make it accessible.
> 
> (I have been reading up on MrSID, and I can see that it's a method for
> amalgamating tiled photos ... so I can't really see how "unpacking" a MrSID
> file would be a good thing for MapServer. So that leads me to believe that
> either MapServer supports a MrSID file or it doesn't. True?? MrSID looks
> patented, which leads me to think that maybe MapServer won't do it.)

Barry,

MapServer can display MrSID images, but only if the GDAL it is 
using is built with MrSID support.  The MrSID support depends on 
use of the MrSID SDK from Lizardtech.   This is free in the sense
of no-cost (but not open source) but can be a bit involved to build
in properly. 

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent