Why can QGIS open MrSid files, but GDAL cannot?

Question

I am able to convert MrSid to GeoTiff in the QGIS GUI, but I would like to do this programmatically through gdal-translate. However GDAL won't recognize the data type, MrSid. But it can when using qgis directly.
gdal_translate -of GTiff -if MrSid ortho_1-1_1n_s_pa079_2015_1.sid /private/var/folders/bk/2m7_mv8d7n5cf43lw0m71j3m0000gn/T/processing_171fdbca8a2e478683a3f68eba3f7141/4d384681ae18421c8d9285b74d514945/OUTPUT.tif
Error Message :
Warning 1: MrSid is not a recognized driver ERROR 4: ortho_1-1_1n_s_pa079_2015_1.sid' not recognized as a supported file format.

user30184 · Accepted Answer

GDAL is not a monolithic software that is exactly same for all users, in all environments. Especially proprietary formats like MrSID which require special licences and perhaps binaries are not compiled by default https://gdal.org/drivers/raster/mrsid.html#raster-mrsid.
If your QGIS can open MrSID files then it has been built with  a GDAL version that has MrSID driver. Your command line GDAL may be some other version. You can check if GDAL has MrSID driver from command line with gdalinfo. If you have the driver you will see this
gdalinfo --format MrSID
Format Details:
  Short Name: MrSID
  Long Name: Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database (MrSID)
  Supports: Raster
  Extension: sid
  Help Topic: drivers/raster/mrsid.html
  Supports: Open() - Open existing dataset.
  Supports: Virtual IO - eg. /vsimem/

Why can QGIS open MrSid files, but GDAL cannot?

One Answer

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question