GIS file formats - Citizendia

A GIS file format is a standard of encoding geographical information into a file. Geography (from Greek γεωγραφία - geografia) is the study of the Earth and its lands features inhabitants and phenomena They are created mainly by government mapping agencies (such as the USGS) or by GIS software developers. The United States Geological Survey ( USGS) is a scientific agency of the United States government.

Metadata often includes:

Elevation data, either in raster or vector form (e. Metadata ( meta data, or sometimes metainformation) is "data about data" of any sort in any media The elevation of a Geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point often the mean sea level. In Computer graphics, a raster graphics image or bitmap, is a Data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of Pixels Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points lines, Curves and shapes or Polygon (s which are all based g. , contours)
Shape layers, usually expressed as line drawings, for streets, postal zone boundaries, etc. A contour line (also Level set, isopleth, isoline, isogram or isarithm) of a function of two
Coordinate system descriptions.
One or more datums describing the precise shape of the Earth assumed by the coordinates. This article describes a concept from Surveying and Geodesy. For other meanings see Datum (disambiguation. EARTH was a short-lived Japanese vocal trio which released 6 singles and 1 album between 2000 and 2001

1 Popular GIS file formats
2 See also

Popular GIS file formats

Raster formats

ADRG - National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)'s ARC Digitized Raster Graphics
BIL - Band Interleaved by Line (image format linked with satellite derived imagery)
CADRG - National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)'s Compressed ARC Digitised Raster Graphics (nominal compression of 55:1 over ADRG)
CIB - National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)'s Controlled Image Base (type of Raster Product Format)
Digital raster graphic (DRG) - digital scan of a paper USGS topographic map
ECW - Enhanced Compressed Wavelet (from ERMapper). The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ( NGA) is an agency of the United States Government with the primary mission of collection analysis and The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ( NGA) is an agency of the United States Government with the primary mission of collection analysis and The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ( NGA) is an agency of the United States Government with the primary mission of collection analysis and A digital raster graphic (DRG is a Digital image resulting from scanning a paper USGS Topographic map for use on a computer The United States Geological Survey ( USGS) is a scientific agency of the United States government. A topographic map is a type of Map characterized by large-scale detail and quantitative representation of relief, usually using Contour lines in modern ECW ( Enhanced Compression Wavelet) is an Open standard Wavelet compression image format developed by Earth Resource Mapping A compressed wavelet format, often lossy.
ESRI grid - binary and ASCII raster formats used by ESRI
GeoTIFF - TIFF variant enriched with GIS relevant metadata
IMG - ERDAS IMAGINE image file format
MrSID - Multi-Resolution Seamless Image Database (by Lizardtech). An ESRI grid is a raster GIS file format developed by ESRI, which has two formats A Proprietary binary format American Standard Code for Information Interchange ( ASCII) For the Irish Think tank, see Economic and Social Research Institute. GeoTIFF is a Public domain metadata standard which allows georeferencing information to be embedded within a TIFF file ERDAS IMAGINE is a Raster graphics editor and remote sensing application designed by ERDAS Inc A compressed wavelet format, often lossy.
JPEG2000 - Open-source raster format. JPEG 2000 is a Wavelet -based Image compression standard It was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group committee in the year 2000 with the intention A compressed format, allows both lossy and lossless compression.

Vector formats

Geography Markup Language (GML) - XML based open standard (by OpenGIS) for GIS data exchange
DXF - Contour elevation plots in AutoCAD DXF format
Shapefile - ESRI's open, hybrid vector data format using SHP, SHX and DBF files
Simple Features - Open Geospatial Consortium specification for vector data
MapInfo TAB format - MapInfo's vector data format using TAB, DAT, ID and MAP files
National Transfer Format (NTF) - National Transfer Format (mostly used by the UK Ordnance Survey)
TIGER - Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing
Cartesian coordinate system (XYZ) - Simple point cloud
Vector Product Format - National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)'s format of vectored data for large geographic databases. The Geography Markup Language ( GML) is the XML grammar defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC to express geographical features The Open Geospatial Consortium ( OGC) is an international voluntary consensus Standards organization. AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format or Drawing Exchange Format is a CAD data File format developed by Autodesk for enabling data interoperability AutoCAD is a CAD (Computer Aided Design Software application for 2D and 3D Design and drafting, developed and sold by The ESRI Shapefile or simply a shapefile is a popular Geospatial vector data format for Geographic information systems software For the Irish Think tank, see Economic and Social Research Institute. Simple Features are an OpenGIS standardwhich specifies digital storage of geographical data (point line polygonmulti-point multi-line etc with both spatialand non-spatial The Open Geospatial Consortium ( OGC) is an international voluntary consensus Standards organization. The MapInfo TAB format is a popular Geospatial vector data format for Geographic information systems software MapInfo is also the common name of the company's main product The National Transfer Format ( NTF) is a File format designed in 1988 specifically for the transfer of spatial information it is administered by the British Standards TIGER redirects here For other uses see Tiger (disambiguation. In Mathematics, the Cartesian coordinate system (also called rectangular coordinate system) is used to determine each point uniquely in a plane The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ( NGA) is an agency of the United States Government with the primary mission of collection analysis and
GeoMedia - Intergraph's Microsoft Access based format for spatial vector storage. Geomedia is the suite of software components in Intergraph Corporation's Geographic information system (GIS Intergraph Corporation is a software company with 3879 employees worldwide (2008 Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer
ISFC - Intergraph's Microstation based CAD solution attaching vector elements to a relational Microsoft Access database
Personal Geodatabase - ESRI's closed, integrated vector data storage strategy using Microsoft's Access MDB format
File Geodatabase - ESRI's geodatabase format, stored as folders in a file system. Intergraph Corporation is a software company with 3879 employees worldwide (2008 MicroStation is a suite of CAD software products for 2- and 3- Dimensional design and drafting developed and sold by Bentley Systems. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer For the Irish Think tank, see Economic and Social Research Institute. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer For the Irish Think tank, see Economic and Social Research Institute.
Coverage - ESRI's closed, hybrid vector data storage strategy. In Geographic information systems a coverage is a Mapping of one aspect of Data in Space. For the Irish Think tank, see Economic and Social Research Institute. Legacy ArcGIS Workstation / ArcInfo format with reduced support in ArcGIS Desktop lineup

Grid formats (for elevation)

USGS DEM - The USGS' Digital Elevation Model
DTED - National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)'s Digital Terrain Elevation Data
GTOPO30 - Large complete Earth elevation model at 30 arc seconds
SDTS - The USGS' successor to DEM

Other formats

Binary Terrain - The Virtual Terrain Project's Binary Terrain format
Well-known text (WKT) – ASCII spatial projection description (ESRI uses a *. ArcInfo (formerly called ARC/INFO) is a full-featured Geographic information system produced by ESRI, and is the highest level of licensing (and therefore ArcGIS is the name of a group of Geographic information system software product lines produced by ESRI. The USGS DEM standard is a Geospatial File format developed by the United States Geological Survey for storing a raster -based Digital elevation The United States Geological Survey ( USGS) is a scientific agency of the United States government. DTED (or Digital Terrain Elevation Data) was originally developed in the 1970s to support Aircraft Radar simulation and prediction The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ( NGA) is an agency of the United States Government with the primary mission of collection analysis and GTOPO30 is a Digital elevation model for the world developed by USGS. Well-known text (WKT is a text Markup language for representing vector Geometry objects on a Map, spatial reference systems of spatial A map projection is any method of representing the Surface of a sphere or other shape on a plane. For the Irish Think tank, see Economic and Social Research Institute. prj extension)
Well-known binary (WKB) - Binary spatial projection description

Contents

Popular GIS file formats

Raster formats

Vector formats

Grid formats (for elevation)

Other formats

See also