|
|
| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
| |
| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: Compressed Terrain Data |
| Date: |
01/07/2003 11:20:55 AM |
| From: |
Karen Morley |
|
|
I have to finally jump in here. Some on this list blatantly use this forum
to espouse their own GIS products while trashing all other offerings. First
criticizing OGC for trying to create non-proprietary solutions and then
condemning software that has proprietary file formats in a manner that is
anything but humble, despite the protestations to the contrary.
Wake up and smell the coffee. Business is about making money. You get what
you pay for and the technology advances accordingly. Just because you give
something away doesn't mean anyone will want it. In fact, the MrSID file
format native support in more applications than any other, including ECW.
The licensing is not draconian as implied in this thread, that is simply a
marketing fallacy perpetrated by ERM.
And indeed as David indicates, ERM has had as many layoffs as LizardTech, it
just wasn't publicized because no one cares.
Finally, a really good solution may have a proprietary file format but so
what? How many people are afraid of converting their data to shp files or
dwg files - both proprietary but widely recognized and handled. How many
applications recognize a .map extension?? hmmm...that must be proprietary
too.
-Karen
-----Original Message-----
From: David Nealey [mailto:dnealey@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 8:34 AM
To: dar@manifold.net: gislist@geocomm.com
Subject: Re: GISList: Compressed Terrain Data
Dimitri,
An open SDK and free software, such as the ones produced by ERM, do not
guarantee the success of a company. There are many factors such as
marketing and sales channels that contribute to a successful business
operation. So there is no correlation between free/cheap and business
success. And I know for a fact that if you don't make money, you are out of
business pretty soon.
Also, LizardTech is not the only company that has laid people off in the
past couple years. I could name almost twenty people who were employed at
ERM in the US two years ago who are not there today.
Personally, I am a big fan of Bill. He has helped make thousands of
Microsoft employees become millionaires and many investors including public
organizations become rich. And now some states are hopefully going to get a
few dollars in difficult economic times. I figure that if MS hadn't
developed DOS and Windows I would still be using a TI-99 or an HP-86.
David
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dimitri Rotow" <dar@manifold.net>
To: <gislist@geocomm.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 7:27 PM
Subject: RE: GISList: Compressed Terrain Data
>
> > This is a little off topic, but I'm trying to see if there would be an
> > interest in a very compressed (not zipped) form of elevation data. We
> > have come up with a technique for compressing DEM's that brings file
> > sizes down to about 127 KB per 1:24000 scale quad. To let you know, the
> > native USGS DEM's are over 1 MB each and the STDS archiving method in my
> >
> > opinion is cumbersome to extract data from. We have also developed a DLL
> ^^^
> Perhaps you've been using cumbersome software. No reason you can't get an
> SDTS DEM by simply doing a File - Open if your application is well
crafted.
>
> >
> > and API that would allow programmers to access the data in these quads
> > programatically without having to decompress them, and we would offer a
> > free translator to convert the quads into an ascii grid, x,y,z, tab,
> > mif, mig or some other common format (but not back to native DEM) for
> > those who just want the raw data and do not need it in a program.
>
> IMHO, the last thing the world needs is yet another proprietary format in
> which to store data, especially one that prevents users from converting to
> the most common format used for such data. Why not propose an open format
> using open algorithms for compression?
>
> Also, as a practical matter, any high performance application will import
> elevation data into whatever internal representation provides the highest
> performance and greatest capability for that application. May as well use
> already-existing, standardized formats for interchange.
>
>
> > Additionally, the compression process detects and corrects the errors
> > inherent in many of the native USGS quads. So the end product is a
>
> Hmmm,... nothing like having the storage format make changes in a
> standardized data set, no matter how sure of itself it may be.
>
> > corrected quad at 1 tenth the original file size that doesn't require
> > 3-4 steps to make it usable.
>
> In exchange, it only requires users and vendors to agree to hand over to
you
> ownership of their ability to access what is now free data that is in the
> public domain. If you own the format and you contro
|
|
Sponsored by:
For information
regarding
advertising rates
Click Here!
|
