Working with rasters in file geodatabase (.gdb) with GDAL

2016-08-29

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Question

I'm working on a tool that converts raster layers to arrays for processing with NumPy, and ideally I would like to be able to work with rasters that come packaged in a .gdb without exporting them all (especially if this requires engaging ArcGIS or ArcPy).

Is this possible with the OpenFileGDB driver? From what I can tell this driver seems to treat raster layers the same as vector layers, which gives you access to some data about the layer but doesn't give you the ReadAsArray functionality.

Answer

I've just released a prototype program Arc Raster Rescue which extracts raster data from the ArcGIS File Geodatabase format.