GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Library)

The Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) is a C/C++ geospatial data format translation programming library and associated set of utility programs built using the library. Within the GDAL library are two components: the GDAL component which supports the reading/writing/translation of numerous raster formats, and the OGR component which supports reading/writing/translation of numerous vector data formats. The GDAL/OGR library is integrated into a wide variety of Open Source and commercial products as a core data access library for reading and writing geospatial data in the supported data formats. The GDAL/OGR Applicaton Programming Interface (API) has also been implemented in a number of other programming languages for programatic processing of geospatial data, including
• Perl
• Python
• VB6 Bindings (not using SWIG)
• GDAL Bindings into R by Timothy H. Keitt.
• Ruby
• Java
• C# / .Net