[mapserver-users] Mapserver and GDB files [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Roppola, Antti - BRS]

More than open mechanisms. I had heard (at a conference I think) that
the intent was
to have an open format. However I also later heard that ESRI are also
very keen to avoid
a bunch of issues such as those that occured when they released the
Shape format.
Most notably, people only implementing parts of the shape spec and
leaving out important
bits like data integrity. I suppose this ends up being a lot more
complex for ESRI than just releasing a spec.
 
This gives some idea on likely timing:
http://events.esri.com/uc/QandA/index.cfm?ConferenceID=51AD3E9D-D566-ED8
5-AEE0DBF4F59C45FD
 
Q: What are ESRI's plans for opening up access to the geodatabase?
ESRI will provide full and open access to the geodatabase using the
following methods:

*	A free and open API to the file geodatabase. * The file
geodatabase was introduced at ArcGIS 9.2. While ESRI would ideally like
to open the file geodatabase format in a manner similar to what we did
for shapefiles when we released ArcView 2, geodatabases are complex and
can be easily corrupted outside the ArcGIS environment. Instead, we plan
to engineer a high performing and well documented API that developers
can freely embed in custom applications and that will read and write
file geodatabase datasets. This will be released after ArcGIS 9.3. 
*	Geodatabase GML. ESRI will release a full geodatabase GML schema
with ArcGIS 9.3. This profile will be based on the OGC specifications
and built on the simple feature GML specification adopted by OGC this
past year.

I'd kind of hope that this is just a bunch of c libraries that we can
compile on anything we want,
but ultimately we'll just have to wait and see...
 
Cheers,
 
Antti


On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 7:19 PM, William Kyngesburye
<woklist at kyngchaos.com> wrote:


	On Sep 22, 2008, at 9:59 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
	
	

		Fawcett, David wrote:
		

			.gdb files are ESRI's new File Geodatabase
proprietary format.  I am
			quite sure that OGR/FWTools does not support it.
			


		David,
		
		Ah thanks.  Indeed they are not supported and it is hard
to imagine they
		will be supported for a while.  ESRI has indicated in
the past that they
		intend to provide an open mechanism to access the file
geodatabase and that
		is still likely to happen at some point.  However, I
think this would be
		quite a few months away at best.
		


	Hmmm, and if ESRI provides it, then, like SDE, it probably won't
be available for OSX (or other linux platforms?).  Bleh.
	
	-----
	William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos*at*kyngchaos*dot*com>
	http://www.kyngchaos.com/
	
	"I ache, therefore I am.  Or in my case - I am, therefore I
ache."
	
	- Marvin 



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