NAME

       gdal_utilities - GDAL Utilities A collection of GDAL related programs.

       The following utility programs are distributed with GDAL.

       • gdalinfo - report information about a file.
       • gdal_translate - Copy a raster file, with control of output format.
       • gdaladdo - Add overviews to a file.
       • gdalwarp - Warp an image into a new coordinate system.
       • gdaltindex - Build a MapServer raster tileindex.
       • gdalbuildvrt - Build a VRT from a list of datasets.
       • gdal_contour - Contours from DEM.
       • gdaldem - Tools to analyze and visualize DEMs.
       • rgb2pct.py - Convert a 24bit RGB image to 8bit paletted.
       • pct2rgb.py - Convert an 8bit paletted image to 24bit RGB.
       • gdal_merge.py - Build a quick mosaic from a set of images.
       • gdal2tiles.py - Create a TMS tile structure, KML and simple web viewer.
       • gdal_rasterize - Rasterize vectors into raster file.
       • gdaltransform - Transform coordinates.
       • nearblack - Convert nearly black/white borders to exact value.
       • gdal_retile.py - Retiles a set of tiles and/or build tiled pyramid levels.
       • gdal_grid - Create raster from the scattered data.
       • gdal_proximity.py - Compute a raster proximity map.
       • gdal_polygonize.py - Generate polygons from raster.
       • gdal_sieve.py - Raster Sieve filter.
       • gdal_fillnodata.py - Interpolate in nodata regions.
       • gdallocationinfo - Query raster at a location.
       • gdalsrsinfo - Report a given SRS in different formats. (GDAL >= 1.9.0)
       • gdalmove.py - Transform the coordinate system of a file (GDAL >= 1.10)
       • gdal_edit.py - Edit in place various information of an existing GDAL dataset
         (projection, geotransform, nodata, metadata)
       • gdal_calc.py - Command line raster calculator with numpy syntax
       • gdal-config - Get options required to build software using GDAL.
       • gdalmanage - Identify, copy, rename and delete raster.
       • gdalcompare.py - Compare two images and report on differences.

Creating New Files

       Access an existing file to read it is generally quite simple. Just indicate the name of
       the file or dataset on the commandline. However, creating a file is more complicated. It
       may be necessary to indicate the the format to create, various creation options affecting
       how it will be created and perhaps a coordinate system to be assigned. Many of these
       options are handled similarly by different GDAL utilities, and are introduced here.
       -of format
           Select the format to create the new file as. The formats are assigned short names such
           as GTiff (for GeoTIFF) or HFA (for Erdas Imagine). The list of all format codes can be
           listed with the --formats switch. Only formats list as '(rw)' (read-write) can be
           written.
       Many utilities default to creating GeoTIFF files if a format is not specified. File
       extensions are not used to guess output format, nor are extensions generally added by GDAL
       if not indicated in the filename by the user.
       -co NAME=VALUE
           Many formats have one or more optional creation options that can be used to control
           particulars about the file created. For instance, the GeoTIFF driver supports creation
           options to control compression, and whether the file should be tiled.
       The creation options available vary by format driver, and some simple formats have no
       creation options at all. A list of options supported for a format can be listed with the
       '--format <format>' commandline option but the web page for the format is the definitive
       source of information on driver creation options.
       -a_srs SRS
           Several utilities, (gdal_translate and gdalwarp) include the ability to specify
           coordinate systems with commandline options like -a_srs (assign SRS to output), -s_srs
           (source SRS) and -t_srs (target SRS).
       These utilities allow the coordinate system (SRS = spatial reference system) to be
       assigned in a variety of formats.
       • NAD27/NAD83/WGS84/WGS72: These common geographic (lat/long) coordinate systems can be
         used directly by these names.
       • EPSG:n: Coordinate systems (projected or geographic) can be selected based on their EPSG
         codes, for instance EPSG:27700 is the British National Grid. A list of EPSG coordinate
         systems can be found in the GDAL data files gcs.csv and pcs.csv.
       • PROJ.4 Definitions: A PROJ.4 definition string can be used as a coordinate system. For
         instance '+proj=utm +zone=11 +datum=WGS84'. Take care to keep the proj.4 string together
         as a single argument to the command (usually by double quoting).
       • OpenGIS Well Known Text: The Open GIS Consortium has defined a textual format for
         describing coordinate systems as part of the Simple Features specifications. This format
         is the internal working format for coordinate systems used in GDAL. The name of a file
         containing a WKT coordinate system definition may be used a coordinate system argument,
         or the entire coordinate system itself may be used as a commandline option (though
         escaping all the quotes in WKT is quite challenging).
       • ESRI Well Known Text: ESRI uses a slight variation on OGC WKT format in their ArcGIS
         product (ArcGIS .prj files), and these may be used in a similar manner to WKT files, but
         the filename should be prefixed with ESRI::. For example 'ESRI::NAD 1927 StatePlane
         Wyoming West FIPS 4904.prj'.
       • Spatial References from URLs: For example http://spatialreference.org/ref/user/north-
         pacific-albers-conic-equal-area/.
       • filename: The name of a file containing WKT, PROJ.4 strings, or XML/GML coordinate
         system definitions can be provided.

General Command Line Switches

       All GDAL command line utility programs support the following 'general' options.
       --version
           Report the version of GDAL and exit.
       --formats
           List all raster formats supported by this GDAL build (read-only and read-write) and
           exit. The format support is indicated as follows: 'ro' is read-only driver; 'rw' is
           read or write (ie. supports CreateCopy); 'rw+' is read, write and update (ie. supports
           Create). A 'v' is appended for formats supporting virtual IO (/vsimem, /vsigzip,
           /vsizip, etc). A 's' is appended for formats supporting subdatasets. Note: The valid
           formats for the output of gdalwarp are formats that support the Create() method
           (marked as rw+), not just the CreateCopy() method.
       --format format
           List detailed information about a single format driver. The format should be the short
           name reported in the --formats list, such as GTiff.
       --optfile file
           Read the named file and substitute the contents into the commandline options list.
           Lines beginning with # will be ignored. Multi-word arguments may be kept together with
           double quotes.
       --config key value
           Sets the named configuration keyword to the given value, as opposed to setting them as
           environment variables. Some common configuration keywords are GDAL_CACHEMAX (memory
           used internally for caching in megabytes) and GDAL_DATA (path of the GDAL 'data'
           directory). Individual drivers may be influenced by other configuration options.
       --debug value
           Control what debugging messages are emitted. A value of ON will enable all debug
           messages. A value of OFF will disable all debug messages. Another value will select
           only debug messages containing that string in the debug prefix code.
       --help-general
           Gives a brief usage message for the generic GDAL commandline options and exit.