GIS file formats

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A GIS file format is a standard of encoding geographical information into a file. They are created mainly by government mapping agencies (such as the USGS) or by GIS software developers.

Metadata often includes:

Elevation data, either in raster or vector form (e.g., contours)
Shape layers, usually expressed as line drawings, for streets, postal zone boundaries, etc.
Coordinate system descriptions.
One or more datums describing the precise shape of the Earth assumed by the coordinates.

1 Popular GIS file formats
2 See also

[edit] Popular GIS file formats

[edit] Raster formats

ADRG - NIMA's ARC Digitized Raster Graphics
BIL - Band Interleaved by Line (image format linked with satellite derived imagery)
CADRG - NIMA's Compressed ARC Digitised Raster Graphics (nominal compression of 55:1 over ADRG)
CIB - 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). 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). A compressed wavelet format, often lossy.

[edit] 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 - NIMA's format of vectored data for large geographic databases.
Personal Geodatabase - ESRI's closed, integrated vector data storage strategy using Microsoft's Access MDB format
Coverage - ESRI's closed, hybrid vector data storage strategy. Legacy ArcGIS Workstation / ArcInfo format with reduced support in ArcGIS Desktop lineup

[edit] Grid formats (for elevation)

USGS DEM - The USGS' Digital Elevation Model
DTED - NIMA's Digital Terrain Elevation Data
GTOPO30 - Large complete Earth elevation model at 30 arc seconds
SDTS - The USGS' successor to DEM

[edit] Other formats

Binary Terrain - The Virtual Terrain Project's Binary Terrain format
Well-known text (WKT) – ASCII spatial projection description (ESRI uses a *.prj extension)
Well-known binary (WKB) - Binary spatial projection description