PDS4 -- NASA Planetary Data System (Version 4)

Driver short name

PDS4

Driver built-in by default

This driver is built-in by default

PDS4 is a format used primarily by NASA to store and distribute solar, lunar and planetary imagery data. GDAL provides read-write access to PDS4 formatted imagery data.

PDS4 files are compose of a .xml (label) file which references a raw imagery file. The driver also supports imagery stored in a separate uncompressed GeoTIFF file with a strip organization compatible of a raw imagery file.

The driver also reads and write georeferencing and coordinate system information as well as selected other header metadata.

A mask band is attached to each source band. The value of this mask band is 0 when the pixel value is one of the missing constants.

Implementation of this driver was supported by the United States Geological Survey.

PDS4 is part of a family of related formats including PDS and ISIS3.

Starting with GDAL 2.5, the PDS4 driver supports reading and writing ASCII fixed-with, binary fixed-with and delimited(CSV) tables as OGR vector layers.

Driver capabilities

Supports CreateCopy()

This driver supports the GDALDriver::CreateCopy() operation

Supports Create()

This driver supports the GDALDriver::Create() operation

Supports Georeferencing

This driver supports georeferencing

Supports VirtualIO

This driver supports virtual I/O operations (/vsimem/, etc.)

Metadata

The PDS4 label can be retrieved as XML-serialized content in the xml:PDS4 metadata domain.

On creation, a source template label can be passed to the SetMetadata() interface in the "xml:PDS4" metadata domain.

Open options (vector only)

Added in version 3.0.

Open options can be specified in command-line tools using the syntax -oo <NAME>=<VALUE> or by providing the appropriate arguments to GDALOpenEx() (C) or gdal.OpenEx (Python). When opening a PDS4 vector dataset, the following open options are available:

  • LAT=value: Defaults to Latitude. Name of a field containing a Latitude value.

  • LONG=value: Defaults to Longitude. Name of a field containing a Longitude value.

  • ALT=value: Name of a field containing a Altitude value. Defaults to Altitude.

  • WKT=value: Name of a field containing a WKT value.

  • KEEP_GEOM_COLUMNS=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to NO. Whether to expose original x/y/geometry columns as regular fields.

Creation support

The PDS4 driver supports updating imagery of existing datasets, creating new datasets through the CreateCopy() and Create() interfaces.

When using CreateCopy(), gdal_translate or gdalwarp, an effort is made to preserve as much as possible of the original label when doing PDS4 to PDS4 conversions. This can be disabled with the USE_SRC_LABEL=NO creation option.

Creation options can be specified in command-line tools using the syntax -co <NAME>=<VALUE> or by providing the appropriate arguments to GDALCreate() (C) or Driver.Create (Python). The following dataset creation options are available:

  • Raster only:

    • APPEND_SUBDATASET=value: See Subdataset / multiple image support.

    • IMAGE_FILENAME=<filename>: Override default external image filename.

    • IMAGE_EXTENSION=value: Override default extension of the external image filename. The default is 'img' for IMAGE_FORMAT=RAW or 'tif' for IMAGE_FORMAT=GEOTIFF.

    • IMAGE_FORMAT=[RAW​/​GEOTIFF]: Format of the image file. If using RAW, the imagery is put in a raw file whose filename is the main filename with a .img extension. If using GEOTIFF, the imagery is put in a separate GeoTIFF file, whose filename is the main filename with a .tif extension. Defaults to RAW

    • INTERLEAVE=[BSQ​/​BIP​/​BIL]: Defaults to BSQ. Pixel organization in the image file. BSQ is Band SeQuential, BIP is Band Interleaved per Pixel and BIL is Band Interleave Per Line. BIL is not valid for IMAGE_FORMAT=GEOTIFF. Starting with GDAL 3.5, when copying from a source dataset with multiple bands which advertises a INTERLEAVE metadata item, if the INTERLEAVE creation option is not specified, the source dataset INTERLEAVE will be automatically taken into account.

    • USE_SRC_LABEL=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to YES. Whether to use the source label in PDS4 to PDS4 conversions.

    • ARRAY_TYPE=[Array​/​Array_2D​/​Array_2D_Image​/​Array_2D_Map​/​Array_2D_Spectrum​/​Array_3D​/​Array_3D_Image​/​Array_3D_Movie​/​Array_3D_Spectrum]: Defaults to Array_3D_Image. To set the XML element that defines the type of array. Using a Array_2D* for a multiband image is not supported. When using a Array_2D* value, INTERLEAVE will be ignored.

    • ARRAY_IDENTIFIER=<string>: (GDAL >= 3.0) Identifier to put in the Array element.

    • UNIT=<string>: (GDAL >= 3.0) Content of the Element_Array.unit. If not provided, the unit of the source band in case of copying from another raster will be used (if present on the source band).

    • CREATE_LABEL_ONLY=[YES​/​NO]: (GDAL >= 3.1) If set to YES, and used in a gdal_translate / CreateCopy() context where the source dataset is a ENVI, GeoTIFF, ISIS3, VICAR, FITS or PDS3 dataset, whose layout is compatible of a raw binary format, as supported by PDS4, then only the label XML file will be generated, and it will reference the raw binary file of the source dataset. The IMAGE_FILENAME, IMAGE_FORMAT and INTERLEAVE creation options are ignored in that situation.

  • Raster and vector:

    • VAR_*=string. If options like VAR_XXXX=yyyy are specified, any {XXXX} string in the template label will be replaced by the yyyy value.

    • TEMPLATE=<filename>:

      Template label to use. If not specified and not creating from an existing PDS4 file, the data/pds4_template.xml file will be used. For GDAL utilities to find this default PDS4 template, GDAL's data directory should be defined in your environment (typically on Windows builds).

    • LATITUDE_TYPE=[Planetocentric​/​Planetographic]: Defaults to Planetocentric. Value of latitude_type.

    • LONGITUDE_DIRECTION=[Positive East​/​Positive West.]: Defaults to Positive East. Value of longitude_direction.

    • RADII=semi_major_radius,semi_minor_radius>: To override the ones of the SRS. Note that the first value (semi_major_radius) will be used to set the <pds:semi_major_radius> and <pds:semi_minor_radius> XML elements, and that second value (semi_minor_radius) will be used to set the <pds:polar_radius> XML element.

    • BOUNDING_DEGREES=west_lon,south_lat,east_lon,north_lat: Manually set bounding box

Layer creation options (vector/table datasets)

Layer creation options can be specified in command-line tools using the syntax -lco <NAME>=<VALUE> or by providing the appropriate arguments to GDALDatasetCreateLayer() (C) or Dataset.CreateLayer (Python). (Starting with GDAL 3.0) When creating a PDS4 vector dataset, or appending a new table to an existing table, the following layer creation options are available:

  • TABLE_TYPE=[DELIMITED​/​CHARACTER​/​BINARY.]: Determines the type of the PDS4 table to create. DELIMITED is the default and corresponds to a CSV table file (with comma field separator). CHARACTER corresponds to a fixed-width ASCII table. BINARY corresponds to a fixed-width table. For fixed-width table, for String fields, an arbitrary width of 64 bytes is used if there is no explicit field set in the OGR field definition. Only DELIMITED supports arbitrary encoding of geometry as a WKT string. The two other table types only support points for geographic coordinates (LAT, LONG).

  • LINE_ENDING=[CRLF​/​LF]: (GDAL >= 3.4) Defaults to CRLF. Determines the line-ending character sequence. Only applies if TABLE_TYPE is DELIMITED or CHARACTER.

  • GEOM_COLUMNS=[AUTO​/​WKT​/​LONG_LAT]: Specify how the geometry is encoded. In AUTO mode, for DELIMITED tables, if the input geometry is Point with a geographic CRS attached to the laye, then a LONG and LAT columns will be created to store the point coordinates. For other geometry types, a WKT column is used. The WKT value of this option can also be used to force a WKT column to be created when a LONG and LAT columns would have been possible. For fixed-width table types, only AUTO and LONG_LAT are possible.

  • CREATE_VRT=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to YES for a DELIMITED table. In that case, a OGR VRT (XML file) will be created along-side the .csv file.

  • LAT=value: Defaults to Latitude. Name of a field containing a Latitude value. Only used when the geometry comes from a Point layer with geographic CRS

  • LONG=value: Defaults to Longitude. Name of a field containing a Longitude value. Only used when the geometry comes from a Point layer with geographic CRS

  • ALT=value: Defaults to Altitude. Name of a field containing a Altitude value. Only used when the geometry comes from a Point layer with geographic CRS

  • WKT=value: Name of a field containing a WKT value.

  • SAME_DIRECTORY=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to NO. Whether table files should be created in the same directory, or in a subdirectory. Defaults to NO, that is that table files will be created in a subdirectory whose name is the basename of the XML file. For example if creating a "foo.xml" PDS4 dataset, table files will be created in the "foo" subdirectory by default. If this option is set to YES, they will be created in the same directory as "foo.xml".

Subdataset / multiple image support

If several Array objects are present in the label, they will be reported as separate subdatasets (typically the main subdataset is an Array3D, and backplanes are represented as Array2D).

Since GDAL 3.0, creation of new datasets with subdatasets is supported (through the APPEND_SUBDATASET=YES creation option). One important restriction is that, given that the georeferencing information in the PDS4 XML label is global for the whole dataset, all subdatasets must share the same georeferencing information: coordinate reference system, georegistration and resolution. Appending to both RAW and GEOTIFF raster is supported. In append mode, most creation options are ignored, except INTERLEAVE (if GeoTIFF output image), ARRAY_TYPE and ARRAY_IDENTIFIER.

PDS4 raster examples

Listing bands and subdatasets:

$ gdalinfo b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml

Driver: PDS4/NASA Planetary Data System 4
Files: b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml
       b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub
Size is 512, 512
Coordinate System is `'
Image Structure Metadata:
  INTERLEAVE=BAND
Subdatasets:
  SUBDATASET_1_NAME=PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:1
  SUBDATASET_1_DESC=Image file b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub, array Spectral_Qube_Object
  SUBDATASET_2_NAME=PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:2
  SUBDATASET_2_DESC=Image file b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub, array iof_r2
  SUBDATASET_3_NAME=PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:3
  SUBDATASET_3_DESC=Image file b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub, array iof_r7
  SUBDATASET_4_NAME=PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:4
[...]
  SUBDATASET_16_DESC=Image file b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub, array emission_angle
  SUBDATASET_17_NAME=PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:17
  SUBDATASET_17_DESC=Image file b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub, array phase_angle
  SUBDATASET_18_NAME=PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:18
  SUBDATASET_18_DESC=Image file b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub, array approx_incidence_angle
  SUBDATASET_19_NAME=PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:19
  SUBDATASET_19_DESC=Image file b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub, array approx_emission_angle
  SUBDATASET_20_NAME=PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:20
  SUBDATASET_20_DESC=Image file b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub, array approx_phase_angle
Corner Coordinates:
Upper Left  (    0.0,    0.0)
Lower Left  (    0.0,  512.0)
Upper Right (  512.0,    0.0)
Lower Right (  512.0,  512.0)
Center      (  256.0,  256.0)
Band 1 Block=512x1 Type=Int16, ColorInterp=Undefined
  Offset: 0.146998785514825,   Scale:4.48823844390647e-06
Band 2 Block=512x1 Type=Int16, ColorInterp=Undefined
  Offset: 0.146998785514825,   Scale:4.48823844390647e-06
Band 3 Block=512x1 Type=Int16, ColorInterp=Undefined
  Offset: 0.146998785514825,   Scale:4.48823844390647e-06
Band 4 Block=512x1 Type=Int16, ColorInterp=Undefined
  Offset: 0.146998785514825,   Scale:4.48823844390647e-06
Band 5 Block=512x1 Type=Int16, ColorInterp=Undefined
  Offset: 0.146998785514825,   Scale:4.48823844390647e-06

The information displayed by default is the one of the first subdataset (SUBDATASET_1_NAME)

Getting information on a subdataset:

$ gdalinfo PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:2

Driver: PDS4/NASA Planetary Data System 4
Files: b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml
       b0011_p237201_01_01v02.qub
Size is 512, 512
Coordinate System is `'
Corner Coordinates:
Upper Left  (    0.0,    0.0)
Lower Left  (    0.0,  512.0)
Upper Right (  512.0,    0.0)
Lower Right (  512.0,  512.0)
Center      (  256.0,  256.0)
Band 1 Block=512x1 Type=Int16, ColorInterp=Undefined
  Offset: 0.04984971,   Scale:7.454028e-06

Conversion to GeoTIFF of a given subdatasets:

$ gdal_translate PDS4:b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml:1:2 iof_r2.tif

Conversion to GeoTIFF of a all subdatasets:

$ gdal_translate -sds b0011_p237201_01_01v02.xml b0011_p237201_01_01v02.tif

This will create b0011_p237201_01_01v02_X.tif files where X=1,....,N

Creation of a new PDS4 dataset, using the default template and setting its parameterized variables:

$ gdal_translate input.tif output.xml -of PDS4 \
            -co VAR_TARGET_TYPE=Satellite \
            -co VAR_TARGET=Moon \
            -co VAR_OBSERVING_SYSTEM_NAME=LOLA \
            -co VAR_LOGICAL_IDENTIFIER=Lunar_LRO_LOLA_DEM_Global_64ppd.tif \
            -co VAR_TITLE="LRO LOLA Digital Elevation Model (DEM) 64ppd" \
            -co VAR_INVESTIGATION_AREA_NAME="Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter" \
            -co VAR_INVESTIGATION_AREA_LID_REFERENCE="urn:nasa:pds:context:instrument_host:spacecraft.lro"

Creation of the same PDS4 dataset as above, using the default template but setting its parameterized variables from a text file. Helps with long command lines:

Create a text file "myOptions.txt" with the below content

#This is a comment
#Conversion parameters for the LRO LOLA dataset
-co VAR_TARGET_TYPE=Satellite
-co VAR_TARGET=Moon
-co VAR_OBSERVING_SYSTEM_NAME=LOLA
-co VAR_LOGICAL_IDENTIFIER=Lunar_LRO_LOLA_DEM_Global_64ppd.tif
-co VAR_TITLE="LRO LOLA Digital Elevation Model (DEM) 64ppd"
-co VAR_INVESTIGATION_AREA_NAME="Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter"
-co VAR_INVESTIGATION_AREA_LID_REFERENCE="urn:nasa:pds:context:instrument_host:spacecraft.lro"
#end of file

gdal_translate input.tif output.xml -of PDS4 --optfile myOptions.txt

For more on --optfile, consult the general documentation on GDAL utilities.

Creation of a PDS4 dataset, using a non default template (here on a HTTP server, but local filename also possible):

$ gdal_translate input.tif output.xml -of PDS4 \
            -co TEMPLATE=http://example.com/mytemplate.xml

Creation of a PDS4 dataset from a source PDS4 dataset (using the XML file of this source PDS4 dataset as an implicit template), with subsetting:

$ gdal_translate input.xml output.xml -of PDS4 -projwin ullx ully lrx lry

In Python, creation of a PDS4 dataset from a GeoTIFF, using a base template into which one substitute one element with a new value:

from osgeo import gdal
from lxml import etree

# Customization of template
template = open('template.xml','rb').read()
root = etree.XML(template)
ns = '{http://pds.nasa.gov/pds4/pds/v1}'
identifier = root.find(".//{ns}Identification_Area/{ns}logical_identifier".format(ns = ns))
identifier.text = 'new_identifier'

# Serialize the modified template in a in-memory file
in_memory_template = '/vsimem/template.xml'
gdal.FileFromMemBuffer(in_memory_template, etree.tostring(root))

# Create the output dataset
gdal.Translate('out.xml', 'in.tif', format = 'PDS4',
               creationOptions = ['TEMPLATE='+in_memory_template])

# Cleanup
gdal.Unlink(in_memory_template)

Appending a new image (subdataset) to an existing PDS4 dataset.

$ gdal_translate new_image.tif existing_output.xml -of PDS4 \
                      -co APPEND_SUBDATASET=YES \
                      -co ARRAY_IDENTIFIER=my_new_image

Adding a PDS4 label to an existing ISIS3 dataset. (GDAL >= 3.1)

$ gdal_translate dataset.cub dataset.xml -of PDS4 -co CREATE_LABEL_ONLY=YES

PDS4 vector examples

Displaying the content of a PDS4 dataset with a table:

$ ogrinfo -al my_pds4.xml

Converting a PDS4 dataset with a table to shapefile, by specifying columns that contain longitude and latitude:

$ ogr2ogr out.shp my_pds4.xml -oo LAT=my_lat_column -oo LONG=my_long_column

Converting a shapefile to a PDS4 dataset with a CSV-delimited table (with an implicit WKT column to store the geometry):

$ ogr2ogr my_out_pds4.xml in.shp

See Also: