Richmond Hill, Ontario – December 16, 2009:  PCI Geomatics, a world leading developer of geo-imaging software and systems, is pleased to announce the upcoming availability of an open source initiative for the geospatial software development community.  The open source library will provide access to the PCI proprietary file format – PCIDSK and will be included in the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) version 1.7 slated for January 2010 release.

The library will offer full support for raster data within the PCIDSK file, including the reading, writing and creation of raster image data, in all storage types (BIP, BIL, BSQ and tiled images) as well as overviews, metadata and projections. The library also includes access to vector data within the PCIDSK file and is available for both Windows and LINUX operating systems.

“PCI Geomatics is committed to providing technology to the geospatial community as open source; we see it as helping to facilitate the creation and sharing of best practices,” said Louis Burry, Vice President of Technology and Delivery at PCI Geomatics.  “The library will enable developers to quickly and easily build more robust and reliable applications supporting the PCI file format.”

"On behalf of the GDAL/OGR project, I am very pleased to incorporate the PCIDSK SDK, significantly improving the read/write support for this important geospatial file format," said Frank Warmerdam, Vice President, GDAL/OGR for the Open Source Geospatial Foundation.  "This continues a long standing commitment by PCI to open data interchange - going back to an earlier generation of the PCIDSK SDK, and the Shapelib open source library."

PCI Geomatics will be using this library within its core products, thus ensuring consistent file-level interoperability between PCI software products and any geospatial tools created using the library.

For more information visit:

Library documentation: http://home.gdal.org/projects/pcidsk/

Library: http://home.gdal.org/projects/pcidsk/download  

About PCI Geomatics 

PCI Geomatics is a world leading developer of software and systems for geo-imaging solutions. Since 1982, we have specialized in remote sensing, digital photogrammetry, spatial analysis, cartographic production, automated production systems, image management and on demand mapping solutions. PCI Geomatics' advanced software systems address a wide variety of industry applications including the environment, agriculture, security and intelligence, aerospace & defense, and satellite receiving stations. We have the expertise and know-how to turn images into useful information.

For more information, visit www.pcigeomatics.com.

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