GDALMOVE(1)

✨ NAME ✨

gdalmove — transform the georeferencing of a raster file in place, like a glow-up for your geotransform 💅

(hey bestie, this one lives in the GDAL family, section 1 of the manual, iykyk)

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

gdalmove [--help] [--help-general]
            [-s_srs <srs_defn>] -t_srs <srs_defn>
            [-et <max_pixel_err>] <target_file>

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so. the gdalmove script takes the bounds of a raster file and transforms them from one coordinate system to another, then updates the coordinate system and the geotransform of the file. and the way it does it? it does not touch the pixel values. at all. not even a little bit. 🫶

it's loosely similar to using gdalwarp to transform an image, but it skips the resampling step entirely so that your image doesn't get damaged. it's generally only suitable for transformations that are effectively linear in the area of the file. so like, cute transformations only, no chaotic ones.

if no error threshold value (-et) is provided, then the file is not actually updated — instead the errors that would be incurred get reported to you. it's giving "let's just see what would happen" energy 🫣. if -et is provided, then the file is only modified if the apparent error being introduced is less than the indicated threshold (in pixels).

currently, the transformed geotransform is computed based on the transformation of the top left, top right, and bottom left corners. a reduced overall error could be produced using a least squares fit of at least all four corner points.

NOTE: 🚨 gdalmove is a Python utility, and it's only available if GDAL Python bindings are available. no bindings, no vibes, sorry bestie 😭

and here are the flags, one by one, no skipping:

• --help — Show this help message and exit ✨
• --help-general — Gives a brief usage message for the generic GDAL commandline options and exit.
• -s_srs <srs_defn> — Override the coordinate system of the file with the indicated coordinate system definition. Optional! if you don't provide it, the source coordinate system is read from the source file. 💜
• -t_srs <srs_defn> — Defines the target coordinate system. this coordinate system will be written to the file after an update. this is the main character of the operation, lowkey 👑
• -et <max_pixel_err> — The error threshold (in pixels) beyond which the file will not be updated. if it's not provided, no update will be applied to the file, but errors will be reported. 🙈
• <target_file> — The file to be operated on. to update this, it must be a file format that supports in place updates of the geotransform and SRS. no in-place support? no update, periodt.

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💖 RETURN STATUS CODE 💖

the program returns status code 0 in case of success, and non-zero in case of error (non-blocking errors emitted as warnings are considered as a successful execution — yes bestie, warnings are not the end of the world 🧚).

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🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam@pobox.com>

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🎀 COPYRIGHT 🎀

1998-2026

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okay that's the whole page, you ate that 🍓 and just so you know where this came from: it's the GDAL source, version dated Aug 18, 2026, and it's page GDALMOVE(1) of the manual. slay, love u, go transform something 💖✨