Comparison of geodata formats
From Wildsong
I suppose you want an actual comparison, not just a list. This is as far as I have gotten. Ask me for it and I will write it. :-)
Brian Wilson 16:14, 15 January 2006 (PST)
ESRI proprietary formats
ArcInfo Librarian
ArcSDE
Coverage
Personal Geodatabase
Open formats
Shapefile -
A "shapefile" is really a collection of files with the same name but different extensions. For example, the projection (if it is defined) is stored in filename.prj.
Tabular data for attributes is stored in a DB IV format file called filename.dbf
When ArcCatalog creates metadata for the file, it puts it in filename.xml.
Data interchange formats
ESRI ASCII (e00) format
