NAME
r.in.gdal - Import GDAL supported raster file into a binary raster map layer.
(GRASS Raster Data Import Program)
SYNOPSIS
r.in.gdal
r.in.gdal help
r.in.gdal [-oek] input=name
[band=number]
output=name
[target=name]
[TITLE="phrase"]
[location=name]
DESCRIPTION
r.in.gdal allows a user to create a (binary) GRASS raster map layer,
or imagery group,
from any GDAL supported raster file format, with an optional title. The
imported file may also be optionally used to create a new location.
OPTIONS
Flags:
- -o
- Override projection (use locations projection)
- -e
- Extend the DEFAULT_WIND in PERMANENT mapset to include the region of
the new map layer. Old resolution is preserved, but the region, and rows/cols
are updated. This will fail if the user doesn't have write access to the
PERMANENT mapset.
- -k
- Keep band numbers instead of using band color names
Parameters:
- input=name
- Name of an existing GDAL supported raster file to be imported.
- band=number
- Number of input band to extract (default is all bands). Number between 1
and number of bands.
- output=name
- Name to be assigned to resultant binary raster map layer or imagery group.
An imagery group is generated if more than one band is imported.
- target=name
- Name of location to read projection info from for GCPs transformation
- TITLE="phrase"
- Title to be assigned to resultant raster map layer(s).
- location=name
- Name of new location to create based on the file, if so desired.
GDAL Supported Formats
Full details on GDAL supported formats are available at:
http://www.remotesensing.org/gdal/formats_list.html
Selected formats:
Format Name Georeferencing
Arc/Info Binary Grid Yes
CEOS (Spot for instance) No
First Generation USGS DOQ Yes
New Labelled USGS DOQ Yes
Military Elevation Data (DTED) Yes
Eosat Fast Format No
ESRI .hdr Labelled Yes
TIFF / GeoTIFF Yes
Erdas Imagine .hfa No
JPEG JFIF No
PCI .aux Labelled Yes
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) No
USGS SDTS DEM Yes
SAR CEOS No
If GDAL doesn't support the indicated file it will report it with a
message like ERROR 4: `abc.e00' not recognised as a supported file format
. This means either that the file doesn't exist, that it isn't supported
by GDAL, or that the format wasn't built into the version of libgdal.1.1.so
being used.
r.in.gdal will only operate correctly if the GDAL shared library is
installed on the system and accessable (normally via LD_LIBRARY_PATH). If
not, r.in.gdal will report Unable to initialize GDAL bridge. If
this occurs it means that you either don't have GDAL installed (ie.
libgdal.1.1.so), it isn't in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH, or it is the wrong
version. Recent builds of libgdal may be available at
http://gdal.velocet.ca/projects/grass, and the shared library should be copied into $GISBASE/lib.
Binary distributions of GRASS will normally include libgdal.
r.in.gdal uses a number of strategies to find the GDAL shared
library. It first looks in $GISBASE/lib/. Then it looks for $GDAL_HOME and
finally it searches without a path letting all the standard Unix dlopen()
search rules apply (which normally includes LD_LIBRARY_PATH).
Location Creation
r.in.gdal attempts to preserve projection information when importing
datasets if the source format includes projection information, and if
the GDAL driver supports it. If the projection of the source dataset does
not match the projection of the current location r.in.gdal will
report an error message (Projection of dataset does not appear to
match current location) and then report the PROJ_INFO parameters of
the source dataset.
If the user wishes to ignore the difference between the apparent coordinate
system of the source data and the current location, they may pass the
-o flag to override the projection check.
If the user wishes to import the data with the full projection definition,
it is possible to have r.in.gdal automatically create a new location based
on the projection and extents of the file being read. This is accomplished
by passing the name to be used for the new location via the location
parameter. Upon completion of the command, a new location will have been
created (with only a PERMANENT mapset), and the raster will have been
imported with the indicated output name into the PERMANENT mapset.
Support for GCPs: In case the image contains GCPs they are written to a
POINTS file within an imagery group. They can directly be used for i.rectify. The target option allows to
automatically re-project the GCPs from their own projection into another
projection read from the PROJ_INFO file of the location name
target.
NOTES
I plan to make a variety of improvements to r.in.gdal in the future
including support for reporting everything known about a dataset if the
output parameter is not set.
The r.in.gdal comand does support the following features, as long as
the underlying format driver supports it:
- Color Table
- Bands with associated colortables will have the color tables transferred.
Note that if the source has no colormap, r.in.gdal in GRASS 5.0 will emit
no colormap. Use r.colors map=... color=grey to assign a greyscale colormap.
In a future version of GRASS r.in.gdal will likely be upgraded to automatically
emit greyscale colormaps.
- Data Types
- Most GDAL data types are supported. Float32 and Float64 type bands
are translated as GRASS floating point cells (but not double precision ...
this could be added if needed), and most other types are translated as
GRASS integer cells. This includes 16bit integer data sources. Complex
(some SAR signal data formats) data bands are translated to two floating
point cell layers (*.real and *.imaginary).
- Georeferencing
- If the dataset has affine georeferencing information, this will be used
to set the north, south, east and west edges. Rotational coefficients will
be ignored, resulting in incorrect positioning for rotated datasets.
- Projection
- The datasets projection will be used to compare to the current location
or to define a new location. Internally GDAL represents projections in
OpenGIS Well Known Text format. A large subset of the total set of GRASS
projections are supported.
- Null Values
- Raster bands for which a null value is recognised by GDAL will have
the null pixels transformed into GRASS style nulls during import. Many
generic formats (and formats poorly supported by GDAL) do not have a way
of recognising null pixels in which case r.null should be used after the
import.
- GCPs
- Datasets that have Ground Control Points will have them imported as
a POINTS file associated with the imagery group. Datasets with only one
band that would otherwise have been translated as a simple raster map
will also have an associated imagery group if there are ground control points.
The coordinate system of the ground control points is reported by r.in.gdal
but not preserved. It is up to the user to ensure that the location
established with i.target has a compatible coordinate system before using
the points with i.rectify.
SEE ALSO
r.in.ascii,
r.in.arc,
r.in.bin,
r.null
REFERENCES
GDAL Pages: http://www.remotesensing.org/gdal/,
Precompiled libgdal for GRASS: http://gdal.velocet.ca/projects/grass
AUTHOR
Frank Warmerdam (warmerdam@pobox.com).
Last changed: $Date: 2004/03/22 14:37:10 $