I recently attended a LizardTech webinar that discussed their Express Server and Geo Express Products. LizardTech has been a geospatial industry leader for many years, developing software that compresses and distributes high resolution raster imagery. LizardTech Express Server allows you to serve Mr. SID files, JPG 2000 files and NITF files. NITF files are a Defense Department file format. Also, Express Server is the fastest way to serve MRSID files when using ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Image Server.
LizardTechs Express Server now allows you to serve out MG4 files, which are the latest version of the MRSID file format. This latest MRSID file format allows you to serve out specified bands from multispectral and hyperspectral imagery and uses alpha-band transparency for better looking mosaics. Other useful and powerful additions to the Express Server include, support for the geography markup language and Web Map Service support.
The latest version of GeoExpress, GeoExpress 8.5, now also supports the new MG4 MRSID file format. GeoExpress 8.5 has a number of improvements that are worth noting. One of those improvements is that MG4 image mosaics now open as quickly as a single image. Also, you no longer have to reencode images in Express Server. You are now able to publish you MRSID files and JPEG2000s, which you have edited in GeoExpress, directly to Express Server. Another improvement is that you are now able to create, index and update catalogs, overviews and WMS layers, in multiple Express Servers from GeoExpress. You no longer have to leave GeoExpress to perform these tasks.
With GeoExpress 8.5 you are able to load imagery directly into Oracle Spatial 10gR2, and GeoExpress is designed to work with many geospatial applications including ESRI, Leica Geosystems, Autodesk, Intergraph, MapInfo, Bentley, and GE/Smallworld.
