ER Mapper ERS Reader/Writer

Licensing options for this format begin with FME Desktop Professional Edition.

FME provides reader and writer access to data in ER Mapper’s ERS format.

Overview

The ERS format is a raw format that uses a header file (*.ers) and a data file, which can have different extensions. The header file contains information about the data itself, like the number of rows and columns, the data byte order, etc., and about the raster itself, like georeferencing information, cell spacing, and ground control points (GCPs). The data file normally contains only plain data, without any header or information on how to interpret it.

The ERS format supports NoData values, although the current FME implementation only supports reading NoData values, but not writing them. The format also supports storing rotation as an angle, which will be ignored by FME upon reading, and applied to the raster upon writing, which might imply slight data loss or distortion.

Using ECW Files

An ERS file using an ECW file as data will not work properly. In this case, you can open the ECW file directly with FME; however, you will not get all the metadata contained in the ERS file itself.

Reader Overview

FME considers a single ERS file to be a dataset.

Note: Some ERS files also contain algorithms for image creation and manipulation: these algorithms are not currently supported.

Writer Overview

The ERS writer creates and writes data into a single folder specified by the Dataset parameter. The ERS writer distinguishes duplicate output files by appending numbers to the filenames.

Note: Writing nodata is not currently supported.

FME Raster Features

FME raster features represent raster data and use several concepts that are unlike those used in the handling of vector data. The topics below describe how FME processes raster data.

About FME Rasters Tiling and Mosaicking
Raster Properties Band Combining and Separating
Band Properties Band and Palette Selection
Palette Properties Raster Processing
Compression Raster versus Vector Features
Pyramiding Raster File Naming
Interleaving World Files
Interpretation and Data Type TAB Files
Palette Resolution  

ERS supports rasters with an arbitrary number of bands, provided all bands are the same data type and no band has a palette.