The GeoRaster feature of Oracle Spatial and Graph must be enabled for each schema that will be using GeoRaster. In previous releases, you enabled GeoRaster for the entire database (by executing a procedure named MDSYS.enableGeoRaster).

See Enabling GeoRaster at the Schema Level for information and instructions. See also the following new PL/SQL related subprograms:

• SDO_GEOR_ADMIN.enableGeoRaster (enable GeoRaster for the current schema)

• SDO_GEOR_ADMIN.isGeoRasterEnabled (check if GeoRaster is enabled for the current schema)

All subprograms in the SDO_GEOR_RA package support putting the result data in a BLOB to support on-the-fly raster algebra. These subprograms include one or more formats that include a parameter named rasterBlob.

For information, see the individual subprogram topics in the SDO_GEOR_RA Package Reference chapter.

The new SDO_GEOR_GDAL PL/SQL package integrates part of GDAL into Oracle database server. It provides server-side raster data loading, exporting, and in-database terrain analysis and visualization capabilities. It also enables and simplifies development of C/C++ plug-ins through the GDAL API.

For a description of this package and reference information about its subprograms, see SDO_GEOR_GDAL Package Reference.

The following changes relate to GeoRaster PL/SQL subprograms.

• Several SDO_GEOR_IP subprograms have new formats with BLOB as output to support on-the-fly image processing and visualization: SDO_GEOR_IP.equalize, SDO_GEOR_IP.filter, SDO_GEOR_IP.normalize, SDO_GEOR_IP.piecewiseStretch, SDO_GEOR_IP.stretch.

• Many SDO_GEOR_RA subprograms have new formats to support putting the result data in a BLOB instead of a GeoRaster object. These new BLOB-related formats include the parameters rasterBlob, outArea, and outWindow. The reference information for all of these subprograms is in SDO_GEOR_RA Package Reference.

• A new format for SDO_GEOR_IP.dodge dodges an image to a reference image.

• The new SDO_GEOR_AGGR.getMosaicStatistics procedure generates statistics and a histogram for virtual mosaics.

• A new pipelined table function for SDO_GEOR.getRasterSubset returns a table of cell values, so that users can leverage SQL analytics more easily.

The following changes relate to GeoRaster Java API.

• Java APIs are added for the new PL/SQL functions and procedures, except for the SDO_GEOR_GDAL package.

• New global image processing functions are added to the Java API, including automatic linear stretching, manual linear stretching, piecewise stretching, normalization, and equalization. These functions allow image processing based on the statistics of the GeoRaster object to achieve consistent visualization enhancements for large images and virtual mosaics.

  The GeoRaster Viewer is enhanced to use the new set of global image processing in the Java API.

Reference information about the GeoRaster Java API is included in Oracle Spatial and Graph Java API Reference.

The size limit of 4GB for external JPEG 2000 image files is removed, so that such large JPEG 2000 images can be directly loaded into database without decompression.

Mixed case user names and schema names are supported for use with GeoRaster.