Read HDF files

Hi Paul, 

Thanks for your answer ... in fact I googled for that before asking this R 
list. 
Oceancolor HDF files are in HDF4 format and provided as two HDF4 format, in 
SIM (Standard Mapped Image) or BIN (binned). 
I first tried to use the BIN format without success. I use the gdal version 
provided with FWtools and gdal_info correctly identify the file as a HDF4 
format, but it refuses to convert it to a geotiff. 
I finally succeeded using the SIM format. 

But, now I am interested in doing that directly into R. 
The version of gdal called by the library rgdal do not include support for 
HDF4 format. 
So my question is now ... can someone give me a step by step instruction 
that I can use to build a GDAL version including the support for HDF4 format 
(as it is the case in the version compiled with FWtools) ? 

Thanks, 

Arnaud 

2011/9/2 Paul Hiemstra <[hidden email]> 

 On 09/01/2011 05:20 PM, Arnaud Mosnier wrote: 

Hi Geo UseRs, 

I am searching a way to read and manage HDF files in R (like files 

provided 

by the ocean color web site, http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/). 

Thanks 

Arnaud 

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The answer can be found by googling for "R read hdf". That leads to the 
HDF5 package or building GDAL with HDF support. Alternatively, find a 
(command)-line tool which can translate HDF5 to geotiff or netCDF (e.g. 
gdal_translate or ) and then use readGDAL or the ncdf package. 

Paul 

-- 
Paul Hiemstra, Ph.D. 
Global Climate Division 
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) 
Wilhelminalaan 10 | 3732 GK | De Bilt | Kamer B 3.39 
P.O. Box 201 | 3730 AE | De Bilt 
tel: +31 30 2206 494 

http://intamap.geo.uu.nl/~paul
http://nl.linkedin.com/pub/paul-hiemstra/20/30b/770

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