Installing GDAL on Windows 10 using binaries for command line functionality

Question

I figured that I would ask this question hoping that someone finds a document or provides a description that actually works. I've followed countless sites, GitHub issues, and other forum posts but have not been able to preserve command line functionality with Python scripts.

Using: Windows 10 and Python 3.7, 64 bit

I do not want to use OSGeo4W or their shell, or conda. I need to use the Windows binaries. I also need to use GDAL version 3.1 due to options not found in GDAL version 3.0

Here is what I have attempted so far. This installation is from scratch, without any dependencies installed.

1. Navigate to the binaries (this version) and download the following: gdal-300-1911-x64-core.msi for the core (do typical install) and GDAL-3.1.0.win-amd64-py3.7.msi for the python bindings.
2. Add C:\Program Files\GDAL to your PATH under system variables. Move it to the very top.
3. Add these two system variables: GDAL_DRIVER_PATH=C:\Program Files\GDAL\gdalplugins and GDAL_DATA=C:\Program Files\GDAL\gdal-data
4. Press OK and navigate to your command prompt.
5. Type in gdalinfo --version. This should output GDAL 3.1.0dev, released 2019/99/99
6. Type in gdal2tiles.py --xyz

At step 6, the application will break. Obviously, we need an input file, but that doesn't matter right now because we receive a different error. Here is what the command prompt outputs:

C:\Users\Bold>gdalinfo --version
GDAL 3.1.0dev, released 2019/99/99

C:\Users\Bold>gdal2tiles.py --xyz
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Bold\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\osgeo\__init__.py", line 18, in swig_import_helper
    return importlib.import_module(mname)
  File "C:\Users\Bold\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\importlib\__init__.py", line 127, in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1006, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 983, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 967, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 670, in _load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 583, in module_from_spec
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 1043, in create_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 219, in _call_with_frames_removed
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\GDAL\gdal2tiles.py", line 53, in <module>
    from osgeo import gdal
  File "C:\Users\Bold\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\osgeo\__init__.py", line 32, in <module>
    _gdal = swig_import_helper()
  File "C:\Users\Bold\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\osgeo\__init__.py", line 31, in swig_import_helper
    return importlib.import_module('_gdal')
  File "C:\Users\Bold\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\importlib\__init__.py", line 127, in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.

As you can see, we receive a weird error. The .exe files work, but not the .py ones. It's most likely due to the Python bindings, but I believe that they are set up correctly.

Answer 1

Try to run it like this python "C:\Program Files\GDAL\gdal2tiles.py". If it still fails then try to install python wheel from here https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#gdal. That is what I did for my Windows setup and it is working fine:

1. Install GDAL binaries from gisinternals
2. Set GDAL environment variable
3. Install GDAL wheel from ~gohlke

Answer 2

Since Python 3.8, you cannot load the dll directly from PATH. In order to tell GDAL to set the environment variable to force it,

USE_PATH_FOR_GDAL_PYTHON = YES

It should fix the DLL loading issues.