Vector GIS File Formats

GIS Ibrahim Nabil Friday, October 21, 2022

Extension File Type Description

The shapefile is BY FAR the

most common geospatial file
type you’ll encounter. All
commercial and open source
accept shapefile as a GIS
format. It’s so ubiquitous that
it’s become the industry
standard.
But you’ll need a complete set
of three files that are
mandatory to make up a
shapefile. The three required
files are:

• SHP is the feature

geometry.
.SHP,
Esri Shapefile • SHX is the shape index
.DBF, position.
.SHX
• DBF is the attribute data.

You can optionally include

these files but are not
completely necessary.

• PRJ is the projection

system metadata.XML is
the associated
metadata.SBN is the
spatial index for
optimizing queries.SBX
optimizes loading times.

Geographic JavaScript Object GEOJSON The GeoJSON format is

Notation (GeoJSON) .JSON mostly for web-based

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mapping. GeoJSON stores
coordinates as text in
JavaScript Object Notation
(JSON) form. This includes
vector points, lines, and
polygons as well as tabular
information. GeoJSON store
objects within curly braces {}
and in general have less
markup overhead (compared
Geographic JavaScript Object to GML).
Notation (GeoJSON) .GEOJSON
.JSON GeoJSON has a
straightforward syntax that
you can modify in any text
editor. Web maps browsers
understand JavaScript so by
default GeoJSON is a
common web format. But
JavaScript only understands
binary objects. Fortunately,
JavaScript can convert JSON
to binary.

GML allows for the use of

geographic coordinates
extension of XML. And
eXtensible Markup Language
(XML) is both human-
readable and machine-
Geography Markup GML readable.
Language (GML)
GML stores geographic
entities (features) in the form
of text. Similar to GeoJSON,
GML can be updated in any
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text editor. Each feature has
a list of properties, geometry
(points, lines, curves,
surfaces, and polygons), and
a spatial reference system.

There is generally more

Geography Markup GML overhead when comparing
Language (GML) GML with GeoJSON. This is
because GML results in more
data for the same amount of
information.

KML stands for Keyhole Markup

Language. This GIS format is
XML-based and is primarily
used for Google Earth. KML was
developed by Keyhole Inc
which was later acquired by
Google.KMZ (KML-Zipped)
replaced KML as being the
default Google Earth geospatial
format because it is a
compressed version of the file.
Google Keyhole Markup
Language (KML/KMZ) .KML KML/KMZ became an
.KMZ international standard of the
Open Geospatial Consortium in
2008. The longitude and
latitude components (decimal
degrees) are as defined by the
World Geodetic System of 1984
(WGS84). The vertical
component (altitude) is
measured in meters from the
WGS84 EGM96 Geoid vertical
GPS exchange Format (GPX) GPX GPS Exchange format is an
XML schema that describes
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waypoints, tracks, and routes
captured from a GPS
receiver. Because GPX is an
exchange format, you can
openly transfer GPS data
from one program to
another based on its
description properties.

GPS exchange Format (GPX) GPX The minimum requirement

for GPX are latitude and
longitude coordinates. In
addition, GPX files optionally
stores location properties
including time, elevation and
geoid height as tags.

IDRISI vector data files have

a VCT extension along with
an associated vector
documentation file with a
VDC extension. VCT formats
.VCT are limited to points, lines,
.VDC polygons, text, and photos.
IDRISI Vector Upon the creation of an
IDRISI vector file, it
automatically creates a
documentation file for
building metadata.Attributes
are stored directly in the
vector files. But you can
optionally use independent
data tables and value files.
MapInfo TAB MapInfo TAB files are a
proprietary format for
MapInfo software. Similar to
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shapefiles, they require a set
of files to represent
geographic information and
attributes.TAB files are ASCII
format that link the
associated ID, DAT, MAP, and
IND files.

.TAB • DAT files contain the

.DAT tabular data associated
MapInfo TAB .ID as a dBase DBF file.
.MAP • ID files are index files
.IND that link graphical
objects to database
information.
• MAP files are the map
objects that store
geographic
information.
• IND files are index files
for the tabular data.

Much of the U.S.

Bureau of Census
Topologically Integrated
Digital Line Graph (DLG) DLG Geographic Encoding and
Referencing (TIGER) data
were generated using the
standard DLG format.
OSM files are the native file
for OpenStreetMap which
OpenStreetMap OSM XML OSM had become the largest
crowdsourcing GIS data
project in the world. These
files are a collection of vector
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features from crowd-sourced
contributions from the open
community.

The GIS format OSM is

OpenStreetMap’s XML-based
file format. The more
OpenStreetMap OSM XML OSM efficient, smaller PBF Format
(“Protocolbuffer Binary
Format”) is an alternative to
the XML-based format.The
data interoperability in QGIS
can load native OSM files.
The OpenStreetMap plugin
can convert PBF to OSM,
which then can be used in
QGIS.

The GPF-DIME file format was

developed by the US Census
Bureau in the late 1960s as one
of the first GIS data formats to
exist. It was used to store the
US road network for major
urban areas, which is a key
Geographic Base File-Dual .GBF
factor in census
Independent Mask Encoding .DIME information.GPF-DIME supports
(GBF-DIME) choropleth mapping and also
assisted in removing error for
digitizing features. DIME was a
key component to the current
TIGER (Topologically Integrated
Geographic Encoding and
Referencing) system, which was
produced by the US Census
Bureau.

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ArcInfo Coverages are a set of
folders containing points, arcs,
polygons or annotations. Tics
are geographic control points
and help define the extent of
the coverage.

Attributes are stored in the ADF

or INFOb tables. Each feature is
ArcInfo Coverage identified with a unique
number. These feature numbers
are a way to link attribute data
with each spatial feature.

Coverages were the standard

format during the floppy disk
era. But over time, this GIS
format has become obsolete
and mostly unsupported in
GIS software.

• You can do anything as long as you strive

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