Comparison of geodata formats

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

Layer file - When you save a layer file, the file filename.lyr is created for the layer to store symbology design and layout information, so that you can reuse those settings in other maps.

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