Supported Map Formats

Dinamica EGO 2.0 and above delegates reading and writing most map formats to the GDAL library. This allows Dinamica EGO to handle several previously unsupported file formats.

Map Formats Supported for Reading

Thanks to GDAL, Dinamica EGO can read maps in the file formats listed below1) More information about how GDAL handles each file format can be found consulting the GDAL format list in the GDAL website .

Only the most common file formats are listed on the Open Map dialog file filters. However, it is possible to open any of the formats below choosing “All files” in the dialog.

AIRSAR Polarimetric - AirSAR

ASCII Gridded - XYZ

Arc/Info ASCII Grid - AAIGrid

Arc/Info Binary Grid - AIG

BIGGIF

BSB Nautical Chart Format - BSB

CEOS

Convair PolGASP data - CPG

DRDC COASP SAR Processor Raster - COASP

Daylon Leveller Heightfield - Leveller

ELAS DIPEx - DIPEx

ELAS DIPEx - ELAS

ENVI Labelled Raster - ENVI

EOSAT FAST Format - FAST

ERMapper - ERS

ESRI Labelled - EHdr

EUMETSAT Archive native - MSGN

EarthWatch/DigitalGlobe - TIL

Envisat Image Product - ESAT

Erdas 7.x - LAN

Erdas Imagine Raw - EIR

Erdas Imagine - HFA

FARSITE v.4 LCP Format - LCP

First Generation USGS DOQ - DOQ1

Fuji BAS Scanner Image - FujiBAS

GDAL Virtual - VRT

GSC Geogrid - GSC

GSat File Format - GFF

Generic Binary - GenBin

Geospatial PDF - PDF

Golden Software ASCII Grid - GSAG

Golden Software Binary Grid - GSBG

Golden Software Surfer 7 Binary Grid - GS7BG

Graphics Interchange Format - GIF

Grid eXchange File - GXF

HF2/HFZ heightfield raster - HF2

ILWIS Raster Map - ILWIS

Idrisi Raster - RST

Image Display and Analysis - IDA

In Memory Raster - MEM

JAXA PALSAR Product Reader - JAXAPALSAR

JPEG JFIF - JPEG

JPEG2000 - JP2OpenJPEG

Japanese DEM - JDEM

KMLSUPEROVERLAY

Magellan Topo - BLX

Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap - BMP

Military Elevation Data - DTED

NADCON Datum Grid Shift - LOSLAS

NASA Planetary Data System - PDS

NITF

NLAPS Data Format - NDF

NOAA Polar Orbiter Level 1b Data Set - L1B

NOAA vertical datum shift - GTX

NTv2 Datum Grid Shift - NTv2

Netpbm - PNM

New Labelled USGS DOQ - DOQ2

Northwood/VerticalMapper Classified Grid Format - NWT_GRC

Northwood/VerticalMapper Numeric Grid Format - NWT_GRD

OGC Web Coverage Service - WCS

OGC Web Map Service - WMS

OZI OZF2/OZFX3 - OZI

PCI Geomatics Database File - PCIDSK

PCI Labelled - PAux

PCRaster

Portable Network Graphics - PNG

PostGIS Raster - PostGISRaster

R Object Data Store - R

RadarSat2 XML - RS2

Raster Matrix Format - RMF

Raster Product Format/RPF - ADRG

Raster Product Format/RPF - RPFTOC

SAGA GIS Binary format - SAGA

SAR_CEOS

SGI Image Format - SGI

SRTM HGT Format - SRTMHGT

Spot DIMAP - DIMAP

Standard Raster Product - SRP

Swedish Grid RIK - RIK

TIFF / BigTIFF / GeoTIFF - GTiff

TerraSAR-X Complex SAR Data Product - COSAR

TerraSAR-X Product - TSX

Terragen Heightfield - Terragen

USGS ASCII DEM / CDED - USGSDEM

USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 2) - ISIS2

USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 3) - ISIS3

USGS SDTS DEM - SDTS

VTP Binary Terrain Format - BT

Vexcel MFF - MFF

Vexcel MFF2 - MFF2

WMO GRIB1/GRIB2 - GRIB

X11 Pixmap - XPM

Map Formats Supported for Writing

Thanks to GDAL, Dinamica EGO can write maps in the file formats listed below1).

Dinamica EGO uses the file extension to decide the map format used to write the file. However, some formats do not either impose or suggest an extension to represent the supported formats. To workaround this limitation, Dinamica EGO invents a corresponding extension using the file format description. On the list of formats below, file formats marked with a star (*) have extensions invented by Dinamica.

Only the most common file formats are listed on the Save Map dialog file filters. However, it is possible to write any of the formats below choosing “All files” in the dialog.

Arc/Info ASCII Grid - AAIGrid

Daylon Leveller Heightfield - Leveller

ELAS DIPEx - ELAS*

ENVI Labelled Raster - ENVI*

ERMapper - ERS*

ESRI Labelled - EHdr*

Erdas Imagine - HFA

GDAL Virtual - VRT

Golden Software Binary Grid - GSBG

ILWIS Raster Map - ILWIS

Idrisi Raster - RST

Image Display and Analysis - IDA*

In Memory Raster - MEM*

Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap - BMP

NITF

NOAA vertical datum shift - GTX

NTv2 Datum Grid Shift - NTv2

Netpbm - PNM

PCI Geomatics Database File - PCIDSK

PCI Labelled - PAUX*

Raster Matrix Format - RMF

Raster Product Format/RPF - ADRG

SAGA GIS Binary format - SAGA

SGI Image Format - SGI

TIFF / BigTIFF / GeoTIFF - GTiff

Terragen Heightfield - Terragen

VTP Binary Terrain Format - BT

Vexcel MFF - MFF

Vexcel MFF2 - MFF2*

The support to Arc/Info ASCII Grid (.asc) in GDAL is read only. So, Dinamica EGO provides the writing capability itself. This format can read images using cell types “Signed 32 Bit Integer” and “IEEE 754 32 Bit Real”. All cell types can be written, but they are automatically converted back to one of those formats next time Dinamica EGO reads the image again.

The current ERMapper (.ers) support in GDAL ignores class names. To workaround this limitation, support to reading and writing this file format is provided by Dinamica EGO itself.

GDAL Limitations

The GDAL implementation (and some times the underlying file format) imposes limitations on the representation of projections, layer names, category names and their corresponding colors. Some of these limitations and their corresponding workarounds are listed in the table below:

Limitation	Workaround
Some file formats do not support storing projections.	Use a VRT file or an auxiliary PAM XML file to keep this information.
Several file formats do not support storing category names.	Use a VRT file or an auxiliary PAM XML file to keep this information. The ERMapper file format has the best support to category names and colors.
Several file formats do not support storing category colors.	Use a VRT file or an auxiliary PAM XML file to keep this information. The ERMapper file format has the best support to category names and colors.
Several file formats do not support the storage of layer names.	Use a VRT file or an auxiliary PAM XML file to keep this information. The ERMapper file format also has support to layer names.
The categories must start from 0 and their definition must be contiguous.	Unfortunately, the only way to workaround this limitation is defining dummy categories (Dinamica EGO does this when representing non-contiguous categories in a GDAL supported format) or using the ERMapper file format.
Some formats do not preserve category colors when a specified number of bits per sample is used.	Unfortunately, the only way to workaround this limitation is using a different format or choosing a number of bits per sample that does not have this limitation for a given format. For example, Geotiff format only present category colors when 8 bits per pixel is used.

The ERMapper file format is handled by Dinamica EGO itself and not delegated to the GDAL library. For that reason, the PAM XML file can not be used with this format.

Dinamica EGO Limitations

Dinamica EGO only retrieves and uses category names and colors from the first layer/band when reading a GDAL supported format. All the other layers/bands are supposed to use the same category names and colors.

Additional Notes

It is important to observe some additional details concerning how map reading behaves in the current Dinamica EGO version:

When the map projection is not found, the map projection is left undefined. Previous Dinamica EGO versions (Dinamica EGO 1.8) assume a LOCAL projection in these cases.

The behavior concerning the omission of cell resolution is also different in the current version. So, when the cell dimension is not defined, a one-meter resolution (or one degree, depending on the map projection used) is assumed. Previously, Dinamica would assume a 100 meter or a one degree resolution, depending on the map projection used.

It is only possible to load maps represented by 8, 16 or 32 bits per cell. Other cell types are not supported.

And an additional note concerning map writing: some formats do not support natively all the informations about map projections, map registration, cell resolution, layer names, category names etc. To workaround this, the GDAL library automatically writes an additional PAM XML file containing all the informations that can not be stored in the map file itself. This PAM XML is automatically processed when the map is loaded again in Dinamica EGO.

Virtual Format

Dinamica supports a virtual file format called VRT defined by GDAL.

This format can be used to transform an image defining a different registration info, different class names and a different color table. It can also be use to create mosaics from several different images.