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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | [gislist] SUM: image processing software options |
| Date: |
07/12/2005 03:10:02 PM |
| From: |
John Callahan |
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Thanks to everyone who responded. I sent this request to two lists,
ESRI-L and gislist (please excuse the cross-posting!), and received
approx 15 replies. As usual, there were some contradictory opinions but
also some common threads. By no means should you use this as a
comprehensive review. Just a few thoughts originating from a few
people. I suggest to speak to the customer service reps, talk with a
technical analyst from the vendor, try the evaluation version, and have
several different people do the testing Below are my original posting
and summary of responses. Thanks again!
- John
Original Question:
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I am hoping some of you may be able to help me out. I am comparing
various image processing software packages to compliment our large user
base of ESRI products (for GIS and vector analysis.) The image
processing software would be used in both teaching classes (installed in
a lab) as well as various research projects. We have some significant
experience in ERDAS IMAGINE but very little experience in the other
packages.
The main packages I am reviewing are ERDAS IMAGINE, ENVI, PCI Geomatics,
ER Mapper, and Idrisi Kilimanjaro. Prices vary widely for these
products and will be a major factor. However, I am curious to know your
experiences with any of these products. Issues such as ease of use,
well documented, tech support, integration with ESRI GIS products and
formats, basic functionality, advanced capabilities, etc..., are very
relevant to our review.
Any thoughts on any of these packages will be greatly appreciated. Will
sum. Thanks!
- John
Summary of Responses:
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Open source GIS and remote sensing packages are definitely worth a look. Although there are many packages out there, both GIS and remote sensing based, most notable are GRASS (which has come a long since many of us have looked at it last decade) and OSSIM (pronounced "awesome" which has made "great strides" only in the past couple of years.) Both of these products are free, open source, have a healthy if not growing community, multi-platform supported, easy to use, customizable, and may provide the answer to either our academic research and/or teaching needs. We will be investigating these options in the very near future.
GRASS
http://grass.itc.it/
OSSIM
http://www.ossim.org/
Many people use and enjoy ER Mapper. Although some found it rather strange to get started with, in a short time it was easy to use and very stable. Decent price and plenty of features. ER Mapper and Idrisi seemed to be the most common for teaching.
Several comments were positive about Idrisi Kiliminjaro. Idrisi is not in the same class as the other packages (limited advanced functionality, support, cutting-edge technology, etc...) but was very easy to use and inexpensive. Great for raster analysis and includes a GIS component. People really enjoyed this one. Idrisi would work great in a teaching setting and for most basic raster work.
ENVI received high marks all around. It is well respected and highly used in the remote sensing arena. The IDL language is extremely powerful although it adds extra costs. ENVI has all the advanced capability and new technology you would want. ENVI is also easy to use compared to most products and has great documentation and tech support. The cost is higher than some of the others, but on par, if not cheaper, than IMAGINE and PCI.
PCI is a powerful package although very difficult to use. Several have said (and I have also heard before) that PCI is a very frustrating package (cumbersome interface) and you need to spend a lot of time (and disk space) getting up to par. PCI seems to have been around for a while and has many advanced features. {my guess, and it's only a guess, is that most of these advanced features can also be found in IMAGINE and ENVI, and some others.]
Surprisingly, not many people commented on IMAGINE. I had anticipated IMAGINE being the most commonly used package but it was the least commented on. Although IMAGINE is a full-featured package, it's software documentation and online information need a lot of work. Tight integration with ESRI products, though I don't think many products really has problems integrating with ESRI software. Annual license program (same cost each year) for educational institutions increases costs compared to ENVI and PCI (high first year cost, low maintenance fees.) IMAGINE is relatively easy to use (although with convoluted menus) yet seems to be a "catch-all" type of program rather than for hard core remote sensing types.
Another product people mentioned was TNT products from MicroImages (http://www.microimages.com/) This product seems to be very powerful, although very expensive. There is a free version called TNTlite, great for teachin
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