[Qgis-user] recompiling gdal: problems with QGIS?

[Agustin Lobo]

No way to have ECW and MrSid support as a plugin?
Agus

Micha Silver wrote:
> Agustin Lobo wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> For the future, if the user is installing a QGIS binary (i.e., ubuntu
>> using Synaptic), is there any way to tell QGIS to use the gdal version
>> included in FWTools? And/or would just copying the appropriate gdal*
>> programs from the fwtools bin_safe directory to the /usr/bin directory 
>> work?
>>
> The need for a gdal which includes copyright encumbered formats pops up 
> on the various mail lists every few months, if my memory servers. Today, 
> preparing the whole qgis tool chain is not trivial - and that's really 
> the only way to get the gdal options you want. IIUC, you *can not* just 
> copy binaries, *.dll's or *.so libs from fwtools into the qgis path.
> Perhaps the "cleanest" solution would be to ask the package maintainers 
> to supply a "gdal-good", "gdal-bad" and "gdal-ugly" in the same fashion 
> that non-free audio codecs are available in binary packages. This way 
> the QGIS project and  distros could stick with the FOSS only policy, but 
> a private user could choose to download from some 3rd party repository 
> an expanded package with the additional libraries he needs- just like 
> fwtools, but merged into qgis.
> I realize that I'm asking already overworked package maintainers to take 
> on a whole new line of production, but it  would definitely be a boost 
> to the popularity of QGIS to be able to grab a windows or ubuntu binary 
> with ecw support built-in. The QGIS people themselves cannot do this 
> since the licensing of ecw is too restrictive regarding redistribution 
> and changes - even tho' the source code is available - and won't fit in 
> with GPL. (Somehow, gvSIG managed to sidestep this issue?). So the only 
> way around for users who want a working GIS software stack, without the 
> chore of recompiling everything is to depend on a friendly neighborhood 
> package maintainer who is willing to compile gdal against the ECW libs.
> 
> Regards,
> Micha
>> Thanks
>>
>> Agus
>>
>> Craig Leat wrote:
>>> Hi Agustin
>>>
>>> Agustin wrote:
>>>> Therefore, I understand I should not try to make the current QGIS I 
>>>> have
>>>> work with a new compiled gdal.
>>>
>>> Yes. gdal is a dependency, so if you change it you need to recompile
>>> everything that depends on it.
>>>
>>>> BUt could I have a second version of gdal
>>>> which I would use for converting ECW and MrSid files to formats that
>>>> QGIS can accept?
>>>
>>> Yes you can have multiple versions of gdal, just head my earlier
>>> warning if you ever decide to build qgis. You could try the FWTools
>>> [1] binary as this offers the formats [2] you need.
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
>>> [1] http://fwtools.maptools.org/
>>> [2] $ ./gdalinfo --version
>>> GDAL 1.5dev, FWTools 2.0.0, released 2007/11/12
>>> $ ./gdalinfo --formats | grep -i "ecw"
>>>   ECW (rw): ERMapper Compressed Wavelets
>>>   JP2ECW (rw+): ERMapper JPEG2000
>>> $ ./gdalinfo --formats | grep -i "mrsid"
>>>   MrSID (ro): Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database (MrSID)
>>>
>>
> 
> 

-- 
Dr. Agustin Lobo
Institut de Ciencies de la Terra "Jaume Almera" (CSIC)
LLuis Sole Sabaris s/n
08028 Barcelona
Spain
Tel. 34 934095410
Fax. 34 934110012
email: Agustin.Lobo at ija.csic.es
http://www.ija.csic.es/gt/obster