GDAL and ArcObjects in The Same Project - A Recipe For Disaster?

Question

I am working on a project where I am attempting to use GDAL and ArcObjects together in the same project. Although the project itself is nothing more than a toolbar in ArcMap, I would like to use some GDAL based raster libraries developed for other non-ArcMap projects that offer a SIGNIFICANT performance boost over the equivalent ArcObject based methods.

I've been getting all types of crazy errors when mixing the two. However, when I execute the same chunks of code in localized (either GDAL alone or ArcObjects alone) projects, everything works as expected.

Can ArcObjects and GDAL co-exist in the same project? Any tips to avoid complications?

FYI - I am using the C# GDAL bindings distributed with FWTools 2.4.7.

Answer 1

Without seeing the errors themselves, I'd guess offhand that you're seeing DLL Hell conflicts between the version of GDAL you're using and the version that ESRI ships. (Yes, ArcObjects uses GDAL under the hood.)

Windows will only load one copy of a DLL into an application's address space (insert big IIRC disclaimer here) and I'm guessing that which one gets loaded depends on which code path you use first.

Try using GDALCheckVersion liberally to see if there are version issues, and perhaps roll back to a version of the FWTools wrappers built for the exact gdal.dll version you'll find in with all the ArcObjects DLLs.