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I have a large amount of large GeoTIFF images. Their names are arbitrary and the person that created them does not work here with us anymore.

I need to do some programming experiment. How can I pick a small subset that covers adjacent ground?

Edit:

I have been tasked with creating a prototype of a slippy map with these GeoTIFF files; they are high resolution aerial imagery of the town we're based in. I want to experiment with GeoServer, as advised in another question here, but the files take so much space that I'd like to start with a smaller subset. So I would like to pick a small number of these GeoTIFFs, and to make a sensible slippy map they should be adjacent - covering areas of ground that are next to each other.

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    What imagery are you working with? What programming language are you using? Software? Could you provide a visual of what you are after?
    – Aaron ♦
    Nov 26, 2014 at 16:20
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    Use gdaltindex tool and you can convert image footprints into polygons. Filenames go to an attribute field.
    – user30184
    Nov 26, 2014 at 16:28
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    @Aaron : I have been tasked with creating a prototype of a slippy map with these GeoTIFF files; they are high resolution aerial imagery of the town we're based in. I want to experiment with GeoServer, as advised in another question here, but the files take so much space that I'd like to start with a smaller subset. So I would like to pick a small number of these GeoTIFFs, and to make a sensible slippy map they should be adjacent - covering areas of ground that are next to each other.
    – Btz
    Nov 26, 2014 at 16:37
  • Thanks Btz, this is helpful--I have included it in your question. Do you have access to ArcGIS?
    – Aaron ♦
    Nov 26, 2014 at 16:43
  • @Aaron : we have no access to ArcGIS but we have QGis. Although I have no experience with it.
    – Btz
    Nov 26, 2014 at 16:45

1 Answer 1

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I would advise creating a shapefile of image boundaries using QGIS and the Image Boundary Plugin. The following screenshot shows the results of using the plugin on 4 geotiffs.

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  • Is that a simplified data area Aaron? I have a method for ArcGis (that would be useless here as the Op hasn't the software) using extent->polygon, integrate then polygon neighbors, however simplified data area polygons would be awesome and much better than xmin-max, ymin-max boxes.
    – Michael Stimson
    Nov 27, 2014 at 2:36
  • @MichaelMiles-Stimson The four geotiffs that I used in this example are overlapping tiles that were clipped to a study area boundary. You can specify the bounding box based on the extent or the valid pixels. In this case, it looks like the algorithm simplified the geometry of the bounding boxes.
    – Aaron ♦
    Nov 27, 2014 at 3:00
  • That's more helpful if you've got irregular NoData areas (like ocean) in your tiles. Thanks Aaron, I'll be downloading that one 4 sure!
    – Michael Stimson
    Nov 27, 2014 at 3:21

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