[mapserver-users] Converting PDF files to GeoTiff

[Mike Flannigan]

Thank you.  That is a great idea.
I need to make some friends at the USGS anyway.

I went to school in Rolla, MO, and I have had friends
at that office in the distant past.  One was Hal Baker.

I love these 15' topos.  They are a real gem.  I'm surprised
they are so hard to come by electronically.


Mike


On 3/21/2014 10:37 AM, Schweitzer, Peter wrote:
> You're working with the USGS historic topo map collection.  In the
> long run it might be helpful to communicate to the appropriate office
> of USGS your need for these to be provided directly in GeoTiff rather
> than in GeoPDF.  I'm sure that our people discussed the format issue
> and came to their current decision based on many factors, including
> the demand they foresaw for specific formats.  But if there is a much
> larger demand for GeoTiff than they had anticipated, I imagine that
> might enable them to revisit the decision.  Of course the conversion
> would entail a cost, but if the number of realistic users is large
> enough, it would seem efficient to do this conversion once for
> everyone rather than separately by each user.  The key issue, I
> suspect, is balancing the number of people who would benefit against
> the cost of creating and maintaining an accessible archive of
> converted GeoPDFs.  But the information needed by the current
> maintainers is the extent of the demand.  This is just my opinion, and
> I'm in no position to promise anything, but I do encourage you to
> communicate your needs to the current maintainers.
>
> Peter
>