Comparison of GIS vector file formats
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of GIS vector file format. 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
- 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)
- 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)
- 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