Image Catalog / GeoRaster Management Tools

Over many years I have created many image catalogs for distribution inside GIS systems and web mapping applications.

The main science behind my implementations has been Peter Lamb’s work at the CSIRO (see my links page for the URL to Peter’s web page).

What is missing from all GIS around today is abstracted management of image catalogs, GeoRasters or image data stores. The GIS industry is too proprietary/physical file focussed. The CatalogRegistry tool inside the imagecatalog.map Manifold Map file on my site is the distillation of years of work creating, designing and managing image catalogs, GeoRasters, image data stores.

I have had to use various tools over the years to construct the tiles for any one image catalog but the best tool I have used so far is Manifold GIS. The spatial SQL inside Manifold GIS for manipulating imagery is fabulous when one considers the price. Before that I have used straight C and also ArcInfo and ArcView 3.x GISes. Manifold GIS beats the lot by a country mile.

As from today I have uploaded onto this site the Manifold GIS version of my image catalog managment tools (imagecatalog.map).

This tool allows you to create disk-based image catalogs that will work with ESRI software (eg ArcIMS, ArcView 3.x), Manifold GIS and University of Minnesota MapServer.

Many on-disk formats are supported eg GeoTiff, JPeg, etc. Image georeferencing can be via GeoTiffs, ESRI World Files, or Manifold XML files.