GDAL is a C++ translator library for more than 200 raster and vector geospatial data formats. It is released under an X/MIT style Open Source license by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. As a library, it presents a single raster abstract data model and single vector abstract data model to the calling application for all supported formats. It also comes with a variety of useful command line utilities for data translation and processing. It offers an API for a variety of languages such as C, C++, Python, Perl, C# and Java
![Hillshade created with GDAL 2.2x of Frank Warmerdam's home area in Canada. Hillshade created with GDAL 2.2x of Frank Warmerdam's home area in Canada.](https://webcf.waybackmachine.org/web/20220524184138im_/https://www.osgeo.org/wp-content/uploads/cdem_hillshade2-570x301.png)