GIS file types

GIS file types

• 1.
  GIS File formats Hansvan der Kwast / Jan Hoogendoorn OpenCourseWare ocw.unesco-ihe.org
• 2.
  GIS File formats •A GIS file format is a standard of encoding geographical information into a file • Formats are mainly created by • Government mapping agencies • GIS software developers • Vector formats • Raster formats 2
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  GIS File formatconversions Raster: • Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) • 142 formats supported Vector: • OGR Simple Features Library (OGR) • 84 formats supported GDAL/OGR is open source. Free tools at http://www.gdal.org 3
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  GDAL/OGR in GISsoftware • Many GIS and remote sensing applications use the GDAL/OGR libraries, e.g.: • QGIS • ArcGIS • Google Earth • GRASS GIS • MapServer • SAGA GIS • gvSIG • … 4
• 5.
  Common vector formats •ESRI Shapefile • Mandatory files: −.shp: shape format; the feature geometry itself −.shx: shape index format; a positional index of the feature geometry to allow seeking forwards and backwards quickly −.dbf: attribute format; columnar attributes for each shape, in dBase IV format • Other important files: −.prj: projection format; the coordinate system and projection information, a plain text file describing the projection using well-known text format ALWAYS COPY ALL FILES, SHARING ONLY THE .SHP FILE DOES NOT WORK 5
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  Common vector formats •Comma separated values (CSV file) STN,Lon,Lat,Alt(m),Name 210,4.419,52.165,-0.20,Valkenburg 225,4.575,52.463,4.40,IJmuiden 235,4.785,52.924,0.50,De Kooij • Can be imported/exported from/to −Spreadsheet programmes and databases −GIS applications, when it has coordinate fields • Can be edited in a text editor (e.g. Notepad) 6
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  Common raster formats •TIFF = Tagged Image File Format, a format for storing raster graphics images • GeoTIFF • A public domain metadata standard which allows georeferencing information to be embedded within a TIFF file, such as −map projection −coordinate systems −Ellipsoids −Datums • An alternative to the "inlined" TIFF geospatial metadata is the *.tfw World File sidecar file format which may sit in the same folder as the regular TIFF 7
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  Common raster formats •Arc/Info ASCII GRID 8
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  File conversions • Rasterto raster (Translate) • Vector to vector (Save as…) • Rasterize (Vector to Raster) • Polygonize (Raster to Vector) • GIS file to geodatabase • Geodatabase to GIS file 9
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  Save a projectin QGIS • You can save the state of your QGIS project in a .qgs file • Includes links to layers • Styling of layers • Zoom level • On the fly projection Be careful: the .qgs file does not contain the files, but only paths to the files. IF YOU MOVE OR DELETE FILES, QGIS WILL GIVE AN ERROR WHEN OPENING A PROJECT FILE 10
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  Organizing your GISdata 11 • Never save data on the desktop or in My Documents • Better to have a separate partition for data and system • Don’t use spaces in folder and file names • Keep file names intuitive. So not test1.shp, test2.shp • Learn where your browser saves downloaded files • Learn how to use zip files
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  Organizing your GISdata QGIS_Training Slides Exercises Exercise_survey Exercise_vector Exercise_raster 12
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  Show extensions • Goto file explorer (Windows Explorer) • Press ALT button • In the menu go to ToolsOptions • Choose View tab • Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types 13