PHOTOGRAPHY
ECW files capture incredibly detailed images on a massive scale. A favorite of aerial photographers and mappers, this file format retains enormous quality and detail, even under higher levels of compression. Find out more about their origins and uses — and how to create your own.
ECW files are capable of great compression levels, achieving ratios of up to 1:100. They’re ideal for large scale photography shot from great distances — for example, from the sky with aerial photography or satellite photography from space. This makes them a favorite with meteorologists and oceanographers.
ECW stands for Enhanced Compression Wavelet. You can compress and decompress the files with only small amounts of RAM, and the processes are so fast that you can move and handle ECWs like standard files.
With ECWs, you can display enormous images — many gigabytes in size — without pixelation. Even better, ECWs don’t require as much computing power as you might expect.
Australian software developers, Earth Resource (ER) Mapping Ltd., created the ECW file.
ER Mapping’s original concept began with terabyte-sized environmental images. A mathematical breakthrough provided a means for transforming and browsing the images. The developers refined this process, improving image quality and speed of use.
As the files became more popular, more people used them on smaller, lighter computers. Another later adaptation made it possible to decompress portions of images without decompressing the entire file.
This file format has several uses and is most common in geoscience, satellite mapping, and environmental industries.
You can use ECW files to capture aerial photographs, including landscape photos from mountaintops and skyscrapers’ upper floors, as well as overhead views taken by low-flying drones and high-flying airplanes.
ECW files can capture extremely large subjects from space, ranging from shorelines and city subdivisions to the full length of rivers, entire states, and more.
ECW files also capture GeoRadar images in the solar system, geospatial data taken from 3D spaces, and geolocation mapping, enabling scientists to observe how vast and complex forms change size, shape, and location.
Below are some advantages and disadvantages of using ECW files.
A range of software programs can open ECW files on a Windows computer or Mac. First, you’ll need to download a compatible program.
Creating and editing ECW files requires specialized software like the ER Mapper Image Compressor. ERDAS IMAGINE software, based on the original design, can also edit and extract information from your images.
It’s good to note that if you’re going to create and edit ECW files, make sure your computer has plenty of available memory space.
Aside from ER Mapper Image Compressor and ERDAS IMAGINE, you can also open ECW files with the following programs:
