Comparison of GIS vector file formats
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of vector GIS file formats. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs.
General information
Feature Types
| Point | Multipoint | Line | Polyline | MultiPolyline | Polygon | Multipolygon | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Geodatabase | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Shapefile[1] | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
- AutoCAD DXF - contour elevation plots in AutoCAD DXF format (by Autodesk)
- Cartesian coordinate system (XYZ) - simple point cloud
- Coverage - closed, hybrid vector data storage strategy. Legacy ArcGIS Workstation / ArcInfo format with reduced support in ArcGIS Desktop lineup. (by ESRI)
- File Geodatabase - geodatabase format, stored as folders in a file system (by ESRI)
- Geography Markup Language (GML) - XML based open standard for GIS data exchange (by Open Geospatial Consortium)
- Simple Features - specification for vector data storage (by Open Geospatial Consortium) that can be used in a GML container
- GeoJSON - open, lightweight format based on JSON, used by many open source GIS packages
- GeoMedia - Microsoft Access based format for spatial vector storage (by Intergraph)
- ISFC - MicroStation based CAD solution attaching vector elements to a relational Microsoft Access database (by Intergraph)
- MapInfo TAB format - format using TAB, DAT, ID and MAP files (by MapInfo Corporation)
- National Transfer Format (NTF) - National Transfer Format (mostly used by the UK Ordnance Survey)
- Personal Geodatabase - closed, integrated vector data storage strategy using Microsoft's Access MDB format (by ESRI)
- Shapefile - open, hybrid vector data format using SHP, SHX and DBF files (by ESRI)
- Spatial Data File - high-performance geodatabase format, native to MapGuide (by Autodesk)
- TIGER - Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing
- Vector Product Format - National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)'s format of vectored data for large geographic databases
References
- ^ ESRI (July, 1998). "ESRI Shapefile technical description" (PDF): 4. Retrieved 2010-01-25.
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