ESRI Adding for ECWP in ArcGIS 10

When ESRI released ArcGIS 10, they added support for reading ECW files from the free ERDAS ECW/JP2 SDK, v3.3. Now ESRI is working on support for the ECW Protocol for streaming ECW and JP2 data from an ERDAS APOLLO IWS server into ArcGIS products. This link provides information from ESRI’s support site concerning the matter. It is great to see ESRI support ECWP!

ERDAS continues development of our latest version of the ECW Plugin for ArcGIS. We expect to deliver the product to the market soon. I will give more detailed information on the ArcGIS Plugin around the time of the Hexagon 2011 Conference. ERDAS' goal is to add support for these capabilities to this version of the plugin:

• ArcGIS 9.3.1, 9.3.1 SP2, and 10.0


• New dynamic progressive rendering of ECWP layers


• ECWP local caching (persistent and configurable)


• Opacity channels


• Faster progressive display


• Support for foreign language versions of Windows (GUI not localized)


• Re-projection of the ECWP streams on-the-fly

ERDAS is working with Autodesk on a new ECW Plugin for AutoCAD 2010/2011 as well. I will provide more information on that topic after Autodesk and ERDAS work through some bumps in the road.

For more in ECW support in ArcGIS 10, see: http://field-guide.blogspot.com/2011/05/esri-adding-for-ecwp-in-arcgis.html

Virtual Mosaics using images from multiple directories

Many ERDAS IMAGINE customers think of Virtual Mosaic as a Viewer capability. ERDAS added ‘Virtual Mosaic’, along with ‘Virtual Layer Stack’ and ‘Virtual Independent Files’ into ERDAS IMAGINE 8.6, which was released in 2002.

The .vmc file is created using the Multiple option when multi-selecting images in the File Chooser, for most any process (Multiple tab pops up on the file chooser when shift-selecting images). Because the File Chooser does not support the ability to select across multiple directories at the same time, a .vmc file containing files from multiple different folders cannot be created with the file chooser.

Because the .vmc is a ASCII text file, the customer can easily create a file containing images from a multiplicity of file folders.

Below is an example of a .vmc file containing MrSID images from multiple different folders. Started the creation with windows command as follows: dir *.sid /b /s > glenville_virtual-mosaic.vmc. I then had to do some editing of the file to make sure the slashes ‘/’ were in the right direction, add VMC at the topeof the file and so forth…..

This is what glenville_virtual-mosaic.vmc looked like when I was finished with my text-smithing.

VMC
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville/glennville_ne.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville/glennville_nw.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville/glennville_se.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville/glennville_sw.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_ne/glennville_ne_ne.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_ne/glennville_ne_nw.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_ne/glennville_ne_se.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_ne/glennville_ne_sw.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_se/glennville_se_ne.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_se/glennville_se_nw.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_se/glennville_se_se.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_se/glennville_se_sw.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_sw/glennville_sw_ne.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_sw/glennville_sw_nw.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_sw/glennville_sw_se.sid
//atlbck1/data/georgia/georgia-99doqq-mrsid/g_quads/glennville_sw/glennville_sw_sw.sid

ERDAS IMAGINE and GeoMedia, where are they going?

Over the last few months people have asked me what is going to happen with ERDAS IMAGINE and Intergraph's GeoMedia, two leading geospatial products under one roof. Ola Rollѐn sat down with Joe Francica this past January and at the end of the interview discussed this very point.

Basically Ola says, both products have been around a long time and have their own audiences and customers. He states Hexagon must be respectful of the two markets the products are serving. Longer-term, the GeoMedia and ERDAS IMAGINE products need to be able to speak and communicate one to another.

Here is the Joe Francica / Ola Rollѐn interview.

As the GIS market grows, there is a lot of room for growth for the old pioneers and the new arrivals. This because, the GIS pie is still growing. I believe the market is about positioned for a very big surge in growth. GIS companies can fight over the same piece of the pie, or companies can position themselves by improving and innovating, and grow as the whole GIS market pie grows.