TransDEM Forum

Hi Roland,

It looks like the US National Geological Survey is playing with their data again.

http://nationalmap.gov/data_delivery/naip.html

The delivery format is changing again, rationalizing I suppose, to a single JPG2000 (JP2) format. The NGS will supply filters and scripts to assist GIS customers.

John

Question is: Will it affect us? I have read a similar National Map announcement in spring, addressing ortho-imagery in general, and also featuring JPEG2000. It's on my list but I decided not to pursue it for TransDEM 2.4 as National Map ortho-images haven't seen wide-spread use for Trainz route building so far. They do have some good stuff there, high-res crystal clear images, that's for sure.

JPEG2000 is another of those obscure formats, utterly complicated for the few things we need. The only point I can see is that it has a standardized way of embedding georeferencing into the file which ordinary JPEG does not. JPEG offers EXIF and various other extensions but apparently none that matches USGS National Map ideas.