Changes in This Release for Oracle Spatial and Graph GeoRaster Developer's Guide

Raster Algebra and Analytics

This release includes support for raster algebra and analytics, which are used in raster data analysis and GIS modeling to define raster analyses as algebraic expressions, so that users can easily apply algebraic functions on raster data to derive new results. For more information, see Chapter 4, "Raster Algebra and Analytics".

Support for raster algebra and analytics includes the following:

• New raster algebra language, which is an extension to the PL/SQL language. It includes an expression language and functions of map algebra local function type. (The raster algebra language is described in Section 4.1.)

• Support for any arithmetic operations using the raster algebra language (SDO_GEOR_RA.rasterMathOp procedure).

• Support for cell value-based conditional queries using the raster algebra language (SDO_GEOR_RA.findCells procedure).

• Support for cell value-based conditional updates (raster editing) using the raster algebra language (SDO_GEOR_RA.rasterUpdate procedure).

• Support for classification for raster segmentation using the raster algebra language (SDO_GEOR_RA.classify procedure).

• New statistics generation functions to support interactive analysis on-the-fly (SDO_GEOR.generateStatisticsMax, SDO_GEOR.generateStatisticsMean, SDO_GEOR.generateStatisticsMedian, SDO_GEOR.generateStatisticsMin, SDO_GEOR.generateStatisticsMode, SDO_GEOR.generateStatisticsSTD).

• Enhancement of SDO_GEOR.generateStatistics to support on-the-fly analysis.

Advanced Image Processing and Virtual Mosaic

This release includes support for advanced image processing and virtual mosaic. For more information, see Chapter 5, "Image Processing and Virtual Mosaic".

Support for advanced image processing and virtual mosaic includes the following:

• Rectification of georeferenced raw images (SDO_GEOR.rectify)

• Orthorectification of georeferenced raw images with a height or a DEM (SDO_GEOR.rectify)

• Large-scale image appending (SDO_GEOR_AGGR.append)

• Advanced and faster large-scale mosaicking of georeferenced raw images (SDO_GEOR_AGGR.mosaicSubset).

• Virtual mosaic of any number of georeferenced raw images and on-the-fly query and cropping over the virtual mosaic (SDO_GEOR_AGGR.mosaicSubset, SDO_GEOR_AGGR.getMosaicSubset, SDO_GEOR_AGGR.getMosaicExtent, SDO_GEOR_AGGR.getMosaicResolutions, SDO_GEOR_AGGR.validateForMosaicSubset, and Section 5.16, "Virtual Mosaic")

• Support for internal reprojection/rectification, common point rules, and simple color balancing with both advanced mosaicking and virtual mosaic (see Table 8-1, "mosaicParam Keywords" in the SDO_GEOR_AGGR.mosaicSubset section)

• Image pyramid parallel generation and partial update (see Section 5.8)

• Special bitmap raster pyramiding algorithm (see Section 5.9)

• Image masking (SDO_GEOR.mask)

• Image linear stretching (see Section 5.6) and image segmentation (see Section 5.7)

• NDVI computation (see Section 5.10) and Tasseled Cap Transformation (see Section 5.11)

GeoRaster Core Enhancements

This release includes the following enhancements to GeoRaster core capabilities:

• Parallel processing capabilities, which can lead to significant improvements in performance, added into mosaicking, pyramiding, and all raster algebra functions and procedures (see Section 1.13, "Parallel Processing in GeoRaster")

• Operation progress reporting added into many new subprograms, and many new utility procedures and functions are added for this purpose (see Section 1.14, "Reporting Operation Progress in GeoRaster")

• Support for relational RDT tables as an additional raster data storage (see Section 1.4.2, "Raster Data Table")

• Ability to specify default alpha channel and pyramid level in the metadata (defined in Appendix A, "GeoRaster Metadata XML Schema")

• New biquadratic interpolation method to interpolate cell value for any point in the grid; biquadratic interpolation method also added as a new resampling type in image operations and pyramiding (see Section 1.7, "Resampling and Interpolation")

• "OTHER" resampling type added to indicate an unknown or external pyramid resampling type imported from files (see Section 1.7, "Resampling and Interpolation")

• Significant performance improvements for pyramiding, reprojection, and scaling

Other New Server-Side Subprograms and Features

The following other new server-side subprograms and features are added:

• New function to query raster range, that is, the minimum and maximum cell values (SDO_GEOR.getRasterRange)

• Two new SDO_GEOR.getRasterBlockLocator formats, which allow specifying a single cell's row, column, and band numbers or specifying a point geometry in either the model coordinate space or the cell coordinate space

• Resolution generation for pyramids (SDO_GEOR.generateSpatialResolutions)

• Creation of empty raster blocks from existing raster blocks (SDO_GEOR_UTL.emptyBlocks)

• Re-creation of DML triggers (SDO_GEOR_UTL.recreateDMLTriggers)

New and Enhanced Client-Side Tools and Java API

The following new and enhanced client-side tools and Java API features are added:

• New GDAL-based ETL wizard for concurrent batch loading and exporting of large numbers of raster files (see Section 1.17.2).

• GeoRaster viewer enhancement to display a virtual mosaic defined as one or a list of GeoRaster tables or views (see Section 1.17.1)

• Java API enhancements to support features such as ground control point (GCP) storage and manipulation, GCP georeferencing, reprojection, and grid interpolations

SDO_GEOR_AGGR Package

The new SDO_GEOR_AGGR package contains subprograms to support virtual mosaic, large-scale physical mosaicking, and appending operations on GeoRaster objects. For reference and usage information about the subprograms, see Chapter 8, "SDO_GEOR_AGGR Package Reference".

SDO_GEOR_RA Package

The new SDO_GEOR_RA package contains subprograms for raster algebra and analytic operations related to GeoRaster. For reference and usage information about the subprograms, see Chapter 9, "SDO_GEOR_RA Package Reference".