Comparison of GIS vector file formats explained

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

	Design Authority	Software license
AutoCAD DXF
Cartesian coordinate system
Geography Markup Language GML	Open Geospatial Consortium	?
GeoMedia
MapInfo TAB format
National Transfer Format
Shapefile	ESRI
TIGER
Vector Product Format (VPF)

• 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