Efficient handling of raster imagery in GIS usually
presents a technical challenge. Files are huge, display and printing is
slow, file transfer is difficult, and finding required images is not easy.
Access to large images over the network is also inefficient and slow.
ImageSTOR is a software system designed to solve these problems.
ImageSTOR provides powerful tools for compressing, storing,
managing and efficiently using your
valuable spatial imagery. Once images are placed in an ImageSTOR database,
it becomes a central repository from which your image assets
can be easily located, explored, and used in your GIS projects. Through
advanced image compression and dramatic speed improvements ImageSTOR will
greatly improve the efficiency of your workflow.
Image Database
ImageSTOR is not just
a compression scheme - it is a complete database system for managing large
amounts of raster data. Based on a custom-built database
engine, it enables data access & retrieval much faster
than the usual file system, improves security
and provides many additional features: advanced image caching,
better multiuser access, network traffic
optimization...
Users may also choose
to use their existing database system (Oracle, IBM DB2, MS SQL Server...)
for image storage through ODBC technology.
This enables centralized storage of all your spatial data: vectors, attributes
and raster data sets. Database system enables flexible management
of your image assets: images can be added, replaced, deleted or regrouped
according to specific project requirements, which is not possible with
simple file-based compression schemes.
Compressed, Multiresolution Image Format
Images are stored in multiresolution format that enables
instantaneous display of any required part of the image, in any resolution;
this feature, combined with efficient compression, results in dramatic
speed improvements in display redraw, zoom and pan operations. Images
are displayed in real-time regardless
of their number and size, even on slower desktop systems or field laptop
computers. Speed improvement is even greater when ImageSTOR is used in
network environments with many users - multiresolution format and data
compression greatly reduce the network traffic.
Image data is efficiently
compressed. Several compression methods
are provided, from lossless (no image
data is lost, reconstruction is perfect) to state-of-the-art wavelet
compression. This greatly reduces required storage space (compression
ratios are up to 30:1), improves system responsiveness and enables simple
image transfer: one small, compact database (fast enough to be used directly
from CDROM) instead of many image files.
features & benefits >>
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