Add to gdal 1.7 support for ECW

[aperi2007]

In the windows operating system version of osgeo4w:

The gdal 1.6 distributed with osgeo4w is supporting ECW.

I know to read ecw is however necessary to download the codec from erdas site. But now it seem that download and install of ecw codec is not sufficient to open ecw with qgis-dev. Seem the gdal-ecw is missing for gdal 1.7.

[warmerdam]

I agree. We seem to be at an impasse with regards to ecw due to it's closed nature.

[lutra]

The download of the new sdk is now straightforward (no more erdas approval required) as it was the old one. Is this enough to consider adding gdal17-ecw to osgeo4w?

Just asking, I don't want to say that the situation is now clear, I still don't like ecw and erdas (especially as Linux user, now that seems the new sdk is windows only). Nevertheless losing ecw support also under windows it will be bad for QGIS (and other projects), as we all know that unfortunately ecw support it a must for many users, and windows is still the most used desktop platform.

cheers

[lutra]

PS QGIS 1.6, based on gdal 1.7, is shipping by the end of October.

[jef]

Replying to lutra:

PS QGIS 1.6, based on gdal 1.7, is shipping by the end of October.

Does the package maintainer have a word in this? ;) I'd probably keep qgis based on GDAL 1.6.

[lutra]

you have more than a word, I just supposed that as trunk is based on gdal17 so it would be the 1.6. In any case the problem will just pushed back a few months.

[pcav]

One good reason to switch to gdal 1.7 is the support for RasterLite. Another is the bugfix with virtual raster that allows the removal of overlapping NULL values. I'm sure there are more good reasons (after all, FrankW and other have not worked in vain for a new GDAL version, right?). More generally, I think we should upgrade wen possible, to profit from the many improvements. AFAICT, we are now trapped in a choice: either using gdal 1.6 with ECW support, but with the limitations above, or move to 1.7, and drop ECW support (until the licence issues are clarified/solved). A third, more complicated way would be to have the two version in parallel. I agree: I also feel lucky having to deal with proprietary formats only rarely.

[jef]

Replying to warmerdam:

I agree. We seem to be at an impasse with regards to ecw due to it's closed nature.

I imagine loosing ECW support with GDAL 1.7 will produce lots of noise - as will using an old GDAL version.

The plugin should still work with the old SDK, shouldn't it?

[warmerdam]

The old SDK is no longer available for download, so the old plugins aren't too relavent except for folks that already have them in place.

Given the reports that the new sdk can now be downloaded without an interview process, I'll look into building a 1.7 plugin this week for it.

[warmerdam]

A gdal17-ecw package has been created (pkg-gdal17-ecw).