Geospatial Software Integration Introduces Open Source GDAL Library for Oracle Spatial GeoRaster

Open Source users now have easy access to raster imagery in Oracle Database. Geospatial Software Integration (GSI) has produced an Open Source GDAL Library for Oracle Spatial GeoRaster.

GDAL, the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library, is a translator library for raster geospatial data formats that is released under an X/MIT style Open Source license by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation.

GeoRaster is a feature of Oracle Spatial, an option to Oracle Database Enterprise Edition that supports advanced spatial analysis and data management. The GeoRaster support in Oracle Spatial addresses the data management needs of broad application groups including remote sensing, photogrammetry, GIS and geosciences applications, business applications, and image and gridded raster data repositories and clearinghouses.

The GDAL Library for Oracle Spatial GeoRaster supports translation to and from Oracle Spatial GeoRaster format content from all other GDAL-supported formats. It may be used with raster format with Oracle Spatial 10g and Oracle Spatial 11g. This library is available at the gdal.org download site: http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/DownloadSource

Ivan Lucena, of Geospatial Software Integration LLC, developed the open source GDAL Library for Oracle Spatial GeoRaster. “The GDAL GeoRaster driver opens new ways to take advantage of a very efficient way to store raster data made that Oracle Spatial makes possible”, observes Lucena. “For typical images sizes, the performance is very good and as the storage hardware and network infrastructure grows, Oracle GRID Computing architecture is able to outperform file based raster file storage with all the advantage of object relational database. Through the Oracle Technology Network, Oracle provides their software free for development and testing purposes. I would encourage people to try it.”

Open Solutions Group was a test site for the new GDAL GeoRaster support and is using this in commercial implementations. “We were very pleased with the performance and completeness of the support for Oracle Spatial GeoRaster format in the GDAL 1.6.0 release”, said Jeffrey Johnson, Geospatial Web Developer, Open Solutions Group, Inc. “OpenSGI is an emerging Information Technology consulting enterprise whose mission is to provide the most cost effective and cutting edge solutions through open innovation and industry collaboration. This GDAL support for Oracle Spatial GeoRaster helps us provide a faster time-to-market when implementing large-scale imagery and geospatial data management solutions for our customers. OpenSGI provides a unique offering of services focused within geospatial information systems and location intelligence mashups to customers in the defense intelligence, federal, and commercial markets.”

SOURCE: http://blogs.oracle.com/databaseinsider/2009/02/open_source_support_for_oracle_spatial_georaster.html