I'm not sure I understand the question so forgive me if this isn't any help but have you looked at GDAL ? The executables supplied are very useful and the library even more so. What language are you writing your GIS in? GDAL works well with C, C++ and Python
Sorry, I don't have any experience with .NET and next to none with VB but is it possible to call C libraries from VB? If so then GDAL is still open to you.