ThinkGeo.Gdal.Dependency.Windows 15.0.0-beta003

ThinkGeo.Gdal.Dependency.Windows

A wrapper of GDAL 3.11.3 native DLLs for Windows. This is a foundational dependency for various ThinkGeo packages and is not intended to be referenced directly by application projects.

GDAL is a translator library for raster and vector geospatial data formats, released under an X/MIT-style open source license by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. As a library, it presents a single raster abstract data model and a single vector abstract data model to the calling application for all supported formats.

Supported platforms

• Architectures: Windows x64, Windows x86
• Minimum OS: Windows 10 / Windows Server 2016 (aligned with the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015–2022 Runtime requirements pulled in via ThinkGeo.Dependency.MicrosoftVisualCRunTime140)
• Target frameworks: any project that targets a win-x64 or win-x86 Runtime Identifier, including modern .NET (.NET 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 …) and classic .NET Framework via the bundled MSBuild fallback

The native DLLs are placed under runtimes/win-x64/native/ and runtimes/win-x86/native/, and flow into the application's publish output automatically when the consuming project runs dotnet publish --runtime win-x64 (or --runtime win-x86).

The DLLs also flow into the build output during dotnet build: with no explicit RID they are placed under bin/<config>/<tfm>/runtimes/<rid>/native/ (the .NET runtime resolves them from there at execution time, so F5 / IDE runs work as-is); with an explicit RID, e.g. dotnet build --runtime win-x64, they are placed flat in bin/<config>/<tfm>/<rid>/, the same layout publish produces.

What's inside

GDAL itself, plus the open-source libraries GDAL depends on:

• PROJ, GEOS, SQLite, libcurl, libxml2, OpenSSL 3, libpng, libpq, MySQL Connector
• HDF4, HDF5, netCDF, cfitsio, FreeXL, KEA, OGDI, OpenJPEG, etc.

A number of optional format plugins are also included:

• gdal_FITS, gdal_HDF4, gdal_HDF5, gdal_KEA, gdal_PDF, gdal_netCDF
• gdal_ECW_JP2ECW, gdal_MrSID (vendor read-only SDKs — see the licensing note below)

The native binaries are sourced from gisinternals.com (Tamas Szekeres' GDAL build distribution).

Licensing notice — please read

This package is a redistribution of binaries from many upstream projects under different licenses. See the bundled LICENSE.txt for the full breakdown of every license family represented in the package.

A few of the plugins ship under vendor SDK terms rather than an open-source license. The capabilities of each bundled binary differ:

• ECW/JP2 — Hexagon (formerly ERDAS) ECW/JP2 SDK v5.x. Decoding on Desktop is free of charge under Hexagon's terms — this is the use covered by ThinkGeo's integration. The bundled gdal_ECW_JP2ECW.dll and NCSEcw.dll are a full read/write SDK build and can also encode ECW imagery, but encoding is gated at runtime: it requires an OEM license key purchased from Hexagon, supplied via the ECW_ENCODE_KEY and ECW_ENCODE_COMPANY environment variables. Server-side use of v5.x and unlimited-size mobile decode also require a paid Hexagon license.
• MrSID and LiDAR/MG4 — Extensis (formerly LizardTech) MrSID Decode SDK and Lidar / MG4 Decode SDK. Free for decode use under Extensis's developer terms. The bundled gdal_MrSID.dll, lti_dsdk_9.5.dll, and lti_lidar_dsdk_1.1.dll are the Decode SDK build and are decode-only by design — they cannot write MrSID, MG3, MG4, or related LiDAR formats regardless of the license held. Producing those formats requires a different gdal_MrSID.dll built against Extensis's Encode SDK (ESDK) or the commercial GeoExpress product, neither of which is included in this package.

ThinkGeo's GDAL integration uses only read/decode functionality, which is covered by the vendors' free SDK licenses. If your application invokes any write or encode operations with these formats, please review the current vendor terms to ensure your deployment is covered.

Reporting issues

This package is part of the ThinkGeo product line. Please report issues through ThinkGeo support channels rather than to the upstream GDAL or gisinternals projects.