Read GeoTIFF Data with Java GeoTools

Demonstrates how to read GeoTIFF data using the GeoTools library in Java. Raster data is retrieved for a particular latitude/longitude.

GeoTIFF Compression

GeoTIFF files can be compressed to reduce filesize. I was not able to get the GeoTools library to read GeoTIFF files with LZW compression, and had to uncompress the file with GDAL prior to reading it in Java/GeoTools:

gdal_translate pathtoinput.tif pathforoutput.tif -co COMPRESS=NONE

I was able to read the LZW compressed files directly when using the GDAL Java bindings (sample project).

For more information on GeoTIFF compression, check out: https://kokoalberti.com/articles/geotiff-compression-optimization-guide/

Other Libraries

I experimented with a few other Java libraries for reading GeoTIFF files. The code snippets below show how to read the file into a Raster object. From there, the steps in App.java can be followed.

I also created another sample project that reads GeoTIFF data using the Java GDAL bindings: https://github.com/tcallsen/geotiff2java-gdal

Java Advanced Imaging - no GeoTIFF LZW Compression support

// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15429011/how-to-convert-tiff-to-jpeg-png-in-java
FileSeekableStream s = new FileSeekableStream(tiffFile);
TIFFDecodeParam param = null;
ImageDecoder dec = ImageCodec.createImageDecoder("tiff", s, param);
RenderedImage op = dec.decodeAsRenderedImage(0);
Raster tiffRaster = op.getData();

ImageIO - no GeoTIFF LZW Compression support

// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64537498/get-tiff-tag-value-including-non-ascii-characters-from-tiff-images-in-java-11
try (ImageInputStream input = ImageIO.createImageInputStream(tiffFile)) {
  ImageReader reader = ImageIO.getImageReaders(input).next(); // TODO: Handle reader not found
  reader.setInput(input);
  // IIOMetadata metadata = reader.getImageMetadata(0); // 0 is the index of first image
  BufferedImage image = reader.read(0);
  Raster tiffRaster = image.getData();
}

Apache Commons Imaging - support for GeoTiff LZW compression but samples not as accurate

// https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/119134/looking-for-an-open-source-java-based-geotiff-library
final TiffImagingParameters params = new TiffImagingParameters();
TiffImageParser readerT = new TiffImageParser();
BufferedImage image = readerT.getBufferedImage(tiffFile, params);
Raster tiffRaster = image.getData();

Blog Post

A blog post that discusses this project in more detail is available here: https://taylor.callsen.me/parsing-geotiff-files-in-java/