ECW

image

ECW (Enhanced Compression Wavelet) is a proprietary wavelet compression image format optimized for geospatial imagery, which can quickly compress and decompress huge images, especially aerial and satellite imagery. It was developed by Earth Resource Mapping, and is now owned by ERDAS, which is owned by Leica Geosystems. The requirement of using the ECWP format for any application is that it requires the user to download and install enabling software in the form of a plug-in or in the case of the Java applet, a Java runtime environment (JRE).

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• OpenJUMPOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 2.0
• IrfanViewreads and writes · freeware
• Q650922reads and writes · freeware / proprietary license
• ArcGISreads · proprietary license
• ENVIreads · proprietary license

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Versions and variants (2)

• Enhanced Compression Wavelet, version 2Unknown
• Enhanced Compression Wavelet, version 3Unknown

Sources

• File Formats Wiki
• PRONOM fmt/371
• Wikidata Q1343033

From Just Solve the File Format Problem (File Formats Wiki), PRONOM, Wikidata. Updated 2026-10-24.

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