| Long Format Name | Code | Creation | Georeferencing | Maximum file size1 | Compiled by default |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arc/Info ASCII Grid | AAIGrid | Yes | Yes | 2GB | Yes |
| ACE2 | ACE2 | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| ADRG/ARC Digitilized Raster Graphics (.gen/.thf) | ADRG | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Arc/Info Binary Grid (.adf) | AIG | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| AIRSAR Polarimetric | AIRSAR | No | No | -- | Yes |
| Magellan BLX Topo (.blx, .xlb) | BLX | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Bathymetry Attributed Grid (.bag) | BAG | No | Yes | 2GiB | No, needs libhdf5 |
| Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap (.bmp) | BMP | Yes | Yes | 4GiB | Yes |
| BSB Nautical Chart Format (.kap) | BSB | No | Yes | -- | Yes, can be disabled |
| VTP Binary Terrain Format (.bt) | BT | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| CEOS (Spot for instance) | CEOS | No | No | -- | Yes |
| DRDC COASP SAR Processor Raster | COASP | No | No | -- | Yes |
| TerraSAR-X Complex SAR Data Product | COSAR | No | No | -- | Yes |
| Convair PolGASP data | CPG | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| USGS LULC Composite Theme Grid | CTG | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| DirectDraw Surface | DDS | Yes | No | No | |
| Spot DIMAP (metadata.dim) | DIMAP | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| ELAS DIPEx | DIPEx | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| DODS / OPeNDAP | DODS | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libdap |
| First Generation USGS DOQ (.doq) | DOQ1 | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| New Labelled USGS DOQ (.doq) | DOQ2 | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Military Elevation Data (.dt0, .dt1, .dt2) | DTED | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Arc/Info Export E00 GRID | E00GRID | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| ECRG Table Of Contents (TOC.xml) | ECRGTOC | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| ERDAS Compressed Wavelets (.ecw) | ECW | Yes | Yes | No, needs ECW SDK | |
| ESRI .hdr Labelled | EHdr | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes |
| Erdas Imagine Raw | EIR | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| NASA ELAS | ELAS | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| ENVI .hdr Labelled Raster | ENVI | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes |
| Epsilon - Wavelet compressed images | EPSILON | Yes | No | -- | No, needs EPSILON library |
| ERMapper (.ers) | ERS | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Envisat Image Product (.n1) | ESAT | No | No | -- | Yes |
| EOSAT FAST Format | FAST | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| FIT | FIT | Yes | No | -- | Yes |
| FITS (.fits) | FITS | Yes | No | -- | No, needs libcfitsio |
| Fuji BAS Scanner Image | FujiBAS | No | No | -- | Yes |
| Generic Binary (.hdr Labelled) | GENBIN | No | No | -- | Yes |
| Oracle Spatial GeoRaster | GEORASTER | Yes | Yes | -- | No, needs Oracle client libraries |
| GSat File Format | GFF | No | No | -- | Yes |
| Graphics Interchange Format (.gif) | GIF | Yes | No | 2GB | Yes (internal GIF library provided) |
| WMO GRIB1/GRIB2 (.grb) | GRIB | No | Yes | 2GB | Yes, can be disabled |
| GMT Compatible netCDF | GMT | Yes | Yes | 2GB | No, needs libnetcdf |
| GRASS Rasters | GRASS | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libgrass |
| GRASS ASCII Grid | GRASSASCIIGrid | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Golden Software ASCII Grid | GSAG | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Golden Software Binary Grid | GSBG | Yes | Yes | 4GiB (32767x32767 of 4 bytes each + 56 byte header) | Yes |
| Golden Software Surfer 7 Binary Grid | GS7BG | Yes | Yes | 4GiB | Yes |
| GSC Geogrid | GSC | Yes | No | -- | Yes |
| Generic Tagged Arrays (.gta) | GTA | Yes | Yes | No, needs libgta | |
| TIFF / BigTIFF / GeoTIFF (.tif) | GTiff | Yes | Yes | 4GiB for classical TIFF / No limits for BigTIFF | Yes (internal libtiff and libgeotiff provided) |
| NOAA .gtx vertical datum shift | GTX | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| GXF - Grid eXchange File | GXF | No | Yes | 4GiB | Yes |
| Hierarchical Data Format Release 4 (HDF4) | HDF4 | Yes | Yes | 2GiB | No, needs libdf |
| Hierarchical Data Format Release 5 (HDF5) | HDF5 | No | Yes | 2GiB | No, needs libhdf5 |
| HF2/HFZ heightfield raster | HF2 | Yes | Yes | - | Yes |
| Erdas Imagine (.img) | HFA | Yes | Yes | No limits2 | Yes |
| Image Display and Analysis (WinDisp) | IDA | Yes | Yes | 2GB | Yes |
| ILWIS Raster Map (.mpr,.mpl) | ILWIS | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Intergraph Raster | INGR | Yes | Yes | 2GiB | Yes |
| IRIS | IRIS | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 2) | ISIS2 | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 3) | ISIS3 | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| JAXA PALSAR Product Reader (Level 1.1/1.5) | JAXAPALSAR | No | No | -- | Yes |
| Japanese DEM (.mem) | JDEM | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| JPEG JFIF (.jpg) | JPEG | Yes | Yes | 4GiB (max dimentions 65500x65500) | Yes (internal libjpeg provided) |
| JPEG-LS | JPEGLS | Yes | No | -- | No, needs CharLS library |
| JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JPEG2000 | Yes | Yes | 2GiB | No, needs libjasper |
| JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JP2ECW | Yes | Yes | 500MB | No, needs ECW SDK |
| JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JP2KAK | Yes | Yes | No limits | No, needs Kakadu library |
| JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JP2MrSID | Yes | Yes | No, needs MrSID SDK | |
| JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JP2OpenJPEG | Yes | Yes | No, needs OpenJPEG library (v2) | |
| JPIP (based on Kakadu) | JPIPKAK | No | Yes | No, needs Kakadu library | |
| KMLSUPEROVERLAY | KMLSUPEROVERLAY | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| NOAA Polar Orbiter Level 1b Data Set (AVHRR) | L1B | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Erdas 7.x .LAN and .GIS | LAN | No | Yes | 2GB | Yes |
| FARSITE v.4 LCP Format | LCP | No | Yes | No limits | Yes |
| Daylon Leveller Heightfield | Leveller | No | Yes | 2GB | Yes |
| NADCON .los/.las Datum Grid Shift | LOSLAS | No | Yes | Yes | |
| MBTiles | MBTiles | No | Yes | -- | No (needs OGR SQLite driver) |
| OziExplorer .MAP | MAP | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| In Memory Raster | MEM | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Vexcel MFF | MFF | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes |
| Vexcel MFF2 | MFF2 (HKV) | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes |
| MG4 Encoded Lidar | MG4Lidar | No | Yes | -- | No, needs LIDAR SDK |
| Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database | MrSID | No | Yes | -- | No, needs MrSID SDK |
| Meteosat Second Generation | MSG | No | Yes | No, needs msg library | |
| EUMETSAT Archive native (.nat) | MSGN | No | Yes | Yes | |
| NLAPS Data Format | NDF | No | Yes | No limits | Yes |
| NOAA NGS Geoid Height Grids | NGSGEOID | No | Yes | Yes | |
| NITF (.ntf, .nsf, .gn?, .hr?, .ja?, .jg?, .jn?, .lf?, .on?, .tl?, .tp?, etc.) | NITF | Yes | Yes | 10GB | Yes |
| NetCDF | netCDF | Yes | Yes | 2GB | No, needs libnetcdf |
| NTv2 Datum Grid Shift | NTv2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Northwood/VerticalMapper Classified Grid Format .grc/.tab | NWT_GRC | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Northwood/VerticalMapper Numeric Grid Format .grd/.tab | NWT_GRD | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| OGDI Bridge | OGDI | No | Yes | -- | No, needs OGDI library |
| OZI OZF2/OZFX3 | OZI | No | Yes | -- | No |
| PCI .aux Labelled | PAux | Yes | No | No limits | Yes |
| PCI Geomatics Database File | PCIDSK | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes |
| PCRaster | PCRaster | Yes | Yes | Yes (internal libcsf provided) | |
| Geospatial PDF | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libpoppler or libpodofo | |
| NASA Planetary Data System | PDS | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Portable Network Graphics (.png) | PNG | Yes | No | Yes (internal libpng provided) | |
| PostGIS Raster (previously WKTRaster) | PostGISRaster | No | Yes | -- | No, needs PostgreSQL library |
| Netpbm (.ppm,.pgm) | PNM | Yes | No | No limits | Yes |
| R Object Data Store | R | Yes | No | -- | Yes |
| Rasdaman | RASDAMAN | No | No | No limits | No (needs raslib) |
| Rasterlite - Rasters in SQLite DB | Rasterlite | Yes | Yes | -- | No (needs OGR SQLite driver) |
| Swedish Grid RIK (.rik) | RIK | No | Yes | 4GB | Yes (internal zlib is used if necessary) |
| Raster Matrix Format (*.rsw, .mtw) | RMF | Yes | Yes | 4GB | Yes |
| Raster Product Format/RPF (CADRG, CIB) | RPFTOC | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| RadarSat2 XML (product.xml) | RS2 | No | Yes | 4GB | Yes |
| Idrisi Raster | RST | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes |
| SAGA GIS Binary format | SAGA | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| SAR CEOS | SAR_CEOS | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| ArcSDE Raster | SDE | No | Yes | -- | No, needs ESRI SDE |
| USGS SDTS DEM (*CATD.DDF) | SDTS | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| SGI Image Format | SGI | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Snow Data Assimilation System | SNODAS | No | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Standard Raster Product (ASRP/USRP) | SRP | No | Yes | 2GB | Yes |
| SRTM HGT Format | SRTMHGT | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Terragen Heightfield (.ter) | TERRAGEN | Yes | No | -- | Yes |
| EarthWatch/DigitalGlobe .TIL | TIL | No | No | -- | Yes |
| TerraSAR-X Product | TSX | Yes | No | -- | Yes |
| USGS ASCII DEM / CDED (.dem) | USGSDEM | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| GDAL Virtual (.vrt) | VRT | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| OGC Web Coverage Service | WCS | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libcurl |
| WEBP | WEBP | Yes | No | -- | No, needs libwebp |
| OGC Web Map Service | WMS | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libcurl |
| X11 Pixmap (.xpm) | XPM | Yes | No | Yes | |
| ASCII Gridded XYZ | XYZ | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| ZMap Plus Grid | ZMap | Yes | Yes | Yes |
1Maximum file size is not only determined by the file format itself, but operating system/file system capabilities as well. Look here for details.
2ERDAS Imagine has different file format for large files, where 32-bit pointers cannot be used. Look for details here.
$Id: formats_list.html 25803 2013-03-25 18:45:55Z rouault $