In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

I first learned about it from internal mail, but due to the (relative, of course) importance of the announcement, we already find several reactions on the geoblogs. So there you go, details of the File Geodatabase API shared by ESRI, to be released in beta the coming month. This matters because this proprietary file format couldn't be used outside of ESRI products.

From the announcement: "The File Geodatabase API provides a non-ArcObjects based means by which advanced developers can work with File Geodatabases. The File Geodatabase API will be C++ based and will provide the ability to perform the following tasks: [...] This API is targeted for advanced developers who require access to the File Geodatabase without an ArcObjects license for purposes of interoperability. A commonly requested user scenario is to open File Geodatabase tables outside of an ArcObjects based application to view or modify data. This API does not replace ArcObjects as the recommended approach to interacting with the geodatabase."

Amongst the limitations of this upcoming first version, noted by geogeek: "Rasters (Raster Dataset, Raster Catalog, Mosaic Datasets and Raster Attributes) are not supported with the initial release of the File Geodatabase API.", and noted by James Fee: "More good news is that the API is a C++ library and not some weird Java or .NET thing.  Oh, but a huge caveat…  This release is Windows only.  Thus those of us working with Fedora, Ubuntu or Mac OS X need no bother to look."