View source for File Formats/Meta Raster Format

{{FormatInfo
|formattype=electronic
|subcat=Geospatial
|extensions={{ext|mrf}}, {{ext|ppg}}, {{ext|pjg}}, {{ext|idx}}
}}
'''Meta Raster Format''' is an image and data storage format designed for fast access to imagery within a georeferenced tile pyramid at discrete resolutions. It was originally developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

It is a composite format, with an image consisting of 3 components:

# MRF metadata file in XML format (file extension: .mrf)
# MRF data file. This is either a "Pile of PNGs" (file extension: .ppg) or a "Pile of JPEGS" (file extension: pjg). The data file contains blocks of concatenated images in [[PNG]] or [[JPEG]] format.
# MRF index file (file extension: .idx)

In addition, recent versions of the format are reported to support [https://github.com/Esri/lerc Limited Error Raster Compression] (LERC), which was developed at ESRI. However, the current (January 2015) version of the filespec does not mention LERC yet.

== Specification ==

* [https://github.com/nasa-gibs/mrf/blob/master/spec/mrf_spec.md Meta Raster Format Specification v0.3.0 (Draft)]

== Software ==

* [https://github.com/nasa-gibs/mrf  Meta Raster Format driver for GDAL]

== Links ==

* [https://github.com/nasa-gibs/mrf/blob/master/src/gdal_mrf/frmts/mrf/docs/MUG.docx?raw=true Meta Raster Format User Guide]
* [https://gcn.com/blogs/emerging-tech/2016/01/nasa-esri-image-storage.aspx NASA, Esri speed delivery of cloud-based imagery data]