python - Using GDAL without admin rights?

I am trying to do some image analysis in Python but am unable to install GDAL due to limited rights. I have attempted copying some of the files and folders into my python folder but am constantly encountering the same error

ImportError: No module named _gdal

The searching that I have done always seems to point to some sort of installer for GDAL, but I am only able to copy the needed .py folders into my python folder.

Is there a way to do this on Windows and if not is there an alternative image reader that can properly open rasters?

sys.path results:

['C:\\Users\\ûser\\Documents\\Python Image Extractor\\Image Interpreter\\src', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib\\site-packages\\xlutils-1.5.2-py2.6.egg', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib\\site-packages\\xlrd-0.8.0-py2.6.egg', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\DLLs', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib\\plat-win', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib\\lib-tk', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib\\site-packages', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib\\site-packages\\PIL', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib\\site-packages\\win32', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib\\site-packages\\win32\\lib', 'C:\\Python26\\ArcGIS10.0\\lib\\site-packages\\Pythonwin', 'C:\\windows\\system32\\python26.zip', 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\ArcGIS\\Desktop10.0\\bin', 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\ArcGIS\\Desktop10.0\\arcpy', 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\ArcGIS\\Desktop10.0\\ArcToolbox\\Scripts']

Answer

Ok plan B! Looks like there is a problem with the maptools.org package that does not include the _gdal_array. Sorry took me a while to figure that our. I tend use ogr and not gdal for the most part so I never noticed!

So to start again:

1. Make sure you have numpy


2. Create an install directory where all the final bits and pieces will be located. Lets say C:\GDAL. I'll refer to this dir as



3. Download the appropriate package from: http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#gdal


4. If you don't have it already get 7-zip, After installing you should be able to right click on the exe and choose extract here. The extract will create two directories DATA and PLATLIB


5. Copy everything in PLATLIB to


6. Copy everything in DATA\Lib\site-packages\osgeo to \osgeo

Now its just a matter of altering your PYTHONPATH and PATH environment variables to include your . The following code will do it in a script.

import os
import os.path
import sys


environList = os.environ['PATH'].split(';')
root = r'C:\Kevin\proj\pythonJunkyard\GDALComponents\GDAL-10.1'
environList.insert(0,root)
os.environ['PATH'] = ';'.join(environList)
sys.path.insert(0,root)
import osgeo.ogr
import osgeo.gdal

Hope this works!