[R-sig-Geo] Reading National Snow and Ice Data Center binary files

[Michael Sumner]

Since the format is raw binary it would be easy enough to read the raw
values with ?readBin and construct a Spatial object from that. If
there is sufficient metadata with the files it might already be
recognized by a GDAL, and if you are lucky in turn by your build of
rgdal (I've not checked the file sets).

Doing it manually is straightforward but laborious and error-prone,
another option is to use the GDAL VRT format - where you can formalize
all of the data type, georeferencing, projection and other metadata
(scaling and so on if necessary) - the you can more or less automate
the process by generating a .vrt for any of the files you like (and
you can include subsetting, combining single to multi-bands, scaling
etc. in the VRT definition).

http://www.gdal.org/gdal_vrttut.html

VRT is surely almost always available in any rgdal/GDAL build since
it's so generic.

I don't have time to attempt this now, but I know it can work.

Cheers, Mike.

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:41 AM, Anthony Fischbach <afischbach at usgs.gov> wrote:
> Has anyone developed scripts for converting the National Snow and Ice Data
> Center binary files to spatial pixel data frames?
> The data format is described under
> http://nsidc.org/data/docs/daac/nsidc0081_ssmi_nrt_seaice.gd.html#format
>
> -----
> Tony Fischbach, Wildlife Biologist
> Walrus Research Program
> Alaska Science Center
> U.S. Geological Survey
> 4210 University Drive
> Anchorage, AK 99508-4650
>
> AFischbach at usgs.gov
> http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/walrus
> --
> View this message in context: http://r-sig-geo.2731867.n2.nabble.com/Reading-National-Snow-and-Ice-Data-Center-binary-files-tp6882737p6882737.html
> Sent from the R-sig-geo mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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-- 
Michael Sumner
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania
Hobart, Australia
e-mail: mdsumner at gmail.com