NOAA vdatum GDAL Variable Paths for Linux Ubuntu

Question

I want to do vertical datum conversions on geotiffs using NOAA vdatum The conversion status menu shows no progress and no conversion happens. I see that Microsoft Windows needs GDAL environmental variables set. The Windows paths are...

C:\Program Files\GDAL 

C:\Program Files\GDAL\bin 

C:\Program Files\GDAL\bin\gdal\apps

C:\Program Files\GDAL\bin\gdal-data 

C:\Program Files\GDAL\bin\gdal\plugins

I am running Linux Ubuntu 16.04 with GDAL installed. Do I need to set the environmental variables for Linux? If so, I understand how to set paths (sudo -H gedit /etc/environment).

What would the paths be for Linux?

Answer 1

I suggest to install proj-bin and proj-data from Ubuntugis unstable first.

The large vdatum files can be downloaded from http://download.osgeo.org/proj/vdatum/

Put the files in /usr/share/proj/. In your file system, navigate to that folder, and open a terminal to execute

sudo chmod 644 egm96_15.gtx

or whatever grid file you want to use.

Then you can run commands like

cs2cs +init=epsg:4326 +to +proj=tmerc +lat_0=0 +lon_0=6 +x_0=2500000 +y_0=0 +k=1.000000 +ellps=bessel +units=m +nadgrids=BETA2007.gsb +geoidgrids=egm96_15.gtx +wktext -f "%.2f" <wgs84.txt >>out.txt
gdaltransform -s_srs EPSG:4326 -t_srs "+proj=utm +zone=32 +ellps=GRS80 +towgs84=0,0,0,0,0,0,0 +units=m +no_defs +geoidgrids=egm96_15.gtx" <wgs84.txt >>out.txt

with an input file wgs84.txt like

7 51 100

Answer 2

I couldn't get vDatum to run natively in Linux because of this problem; GDAL can't be found even when the Java-specific libraries are installed in the Java PATH.

But it does run in wine! All you have to do is download the GDAL package from NOAA (https://vdatum.noaa.gov/download/sample_data/GDAL.zip) and set the environment variables (https://vdatum.noaa.gov/docs/userguide.html#step33). One of these environment variables is PATH, which I think you have to set by editing the registry. The key is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment\PATH

Then you can run wine 'lib\java_home\openjdk-11.0.2\bin\java' -jar vdatum.jar