Install libgeotiff with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage

Commands and aliases

• applygeo
• geotifcp
• listgeo

Project history

The GeoTIFF format was developed in the early 1990s to add geographic metadata to the mature TIFF image format. OGC records a September 1994 SPOT Image proposal, a November 1995 Revision 1.0 specification by Ritter and Ruth, and a 2000 adjustment to the community specification before OGC GeoTIFF 1.1 formalized the standard.

The OSGeo libgeotiff repository describes the library's job as extracting and parsing GeoTIFF key directories and installing GeoTIFF keys in new files. The project migrated to a GitHub-hosted OSGeo repository while keeping OSGeo Trac and download archives as historical project infrastructure.

Adoption history

GeoTIFF's adoption came from remote sensing, GIS, cartography, and earth-science users needing a TIFF-compatible exchange format for georeferenced imagery. OGC states that the format is used throughout geospatial and earth-science communities, and libgeotiff follows that usage as a common implementation dependency.

Package managers expose libgeotiff as both a library and CLI utilities such as listgeo, geotifcp, and applygeo. Its downstream footprint is strongest in geospatial stacks that also involve TIFF, PROJ, GDAL, and raster-processing tools.

How it is used

Users reach for libgeotiff to inspect, copy, or attach georeferencing keys in TIFF files. The tools are small but durable: listgeo reports GeoTIFF metadata, geotifcp copies georeferencing into new TIFFs, and applygeo applies external metadata.

Developers use the C library when they need direct access to GeoTIFF key directories rather than a full GIS framework. That makes it useful as a dependency under larger geospatial applications and as a command-line diagnostic package.

Why package nerds care

libgeotiff sits at the dependency layer where image codecs meet coordinate-reference metadata. For packagers, that means careful coordination with libtiff, PROJ/EPSG data, and GDAL-like consumers.

Its importance is not flashy application UX but interoperability: if GeoTIFF metadata parsing breaks, many map-processing pipelines fail in ways that look like bad coordinates rather than bad software.

Timeline

• 1994: SPOT Image Corp proposed an early GeoTIFF structure focused on UTM.
• 1995: Ritter and Ruth formalized GeoTIFF Revision 1.0.
• 2000: Minor adjustments to the community GeoTIFF 1.0 specification were published.
• 2007: OSGeo download archive entries show libgeotiff release artifacts already hosted in the OSGeo geotiff area.
• 2019: OGC GeoTIFF 1.1 documented a minor revision aligned with modern OGC practice and EPSG register changes.

Related projects

• GeoTIFF depends conceptually on TIFF and coordinate-reference identifiers from the EPSG ecosystem. In practical package graphs it often appears near libtiff, PROJ, GDAL, rasterio, and other geospatial tooling.

Sources

• https://docs.ogc.org/is/19-008r4/19-008r4.html
• https://download.osgeo.org/geotiff/libgeotiff/
• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/libgeotiff
• https://github.com/OSGeo/libgeotiff
• https://trac.osgeo.org/geotiff/
• https://www.ogc.org/standards/geotiff/