GDAL Raster Formats

Long Format Name Code Creation Georeferencing Maximum file size1
Arc/Info ASCII Grid AAIGrid Yes Yes 2GB
Arc/Info Binary Grid (.adf) AIG No Yes --
AIRSAR Polarimetric AIRSAR No No --
Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap (.bmp) BMP Yes Yes 4GiB
BSB Nautical Chart Format (.kap) BSB No Yes --
VTP Binary Terrain Format (.bt) BT Yes Yes --
CEOS (Spot for instance) CEOS No No --
Spot DIMAP (metadata.dim) DIMAP No Yes --
First Generation USGS DOQ (.doq) DOQ1 No Yes --
DODS / OPeNDAP DODS No Yes --
New Labelled USGS DOQ (.doq) DOQ2 No Yes --
Military Elevation Data (.dt0, .dt1, .dt2) DTED Yes Yes --
ERMapper Compressed Wavelets (.ecw) ECW Yes Yes
ESRI .hdr Labelled EHdr Yes Yes No limits
ENVI .hdr Labelled Raster ENVI Yes Yes No limits
Envisat Image Product (.n1) Envisat No No --
EOSAT FAST Format FAST No Yes --
FITS (.fits) FITS Yes No
Graphics Interchange Format (.gif) GIF Yes No 2GB
GMT Compatible netCDF GMT Yes Yes 2GB
GRASS Rasters GRASS No Yes --
Golden Software ASCII Grid GSAG Yes No --
Golden Software Binary Grid GSBG Yes No 4GiB (32767x32767 of 4 bytes each + 56 byte header)
Golden Software Surfer 7 Binary Grid GS7BG No No 4GiB
TIFF / GeoTIFF (.tif) GTiff Yes Yes 4GiB
GXF - Grid eXchange File GXF Yes Yes 4GiB
Hierarchical Data Format Release 4 (HDF4) HDF4 Yes Yes 2GiB
Hierarchical Data Format Release 5 (HDF5) HDF5 Yes Yes 2GiB
Intergraph Raster INGR Yes Yes 2GiB
Erdas Imagine (.img) HFA Yes Yes No limits2
Vexcel MFF2 HKV Yes Yes No limits
Idrisi Raster RST Yes Yes No limits
Image Display and Analysis (WinDisp) IDA Yes Yes 2GB
ILWIS Raster Map (.mpr,.mpl) ILWIS Yes Yes --
Japanese DEM (.mem) JDEM No Yes --
JPEG JFIF (.jpg) JPEG Yes Yes 4GiB (max dimentions 65500x65500)
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) JPEG2000 Yes Yes 2GiB
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) JP2KAK Yes Yes No limits
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) JP2ECW Yes Yes 500MB
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) JP2MrSID Yes Yes
NOAA Polar Orbiter Level 1b Data Set (AVHRR) L1B No Yes --
Erdas 7.x .LAN and .GIS LAN No Yes 2GB
Daylon Leveller Heightfield Leveller No Yes
In Memory Raster MEM Yes Yes 2GiB
Vexcel MFF MFF Yes Yes No limits
Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database MrSID No Yes --
Meteosat Second Generation MSG No Yes
NDF NLAPS Data Format No Yes No limits
NITF NITF Yes Yes 4GB
NetCDF netCDF Yes Yes 2GB
OGDI Bridge OGDI No Yes --
PCI .aux Labelled PAux Yes No No limits
PCI Geomatics Database File PCIDSK Yes Yes No limits
Portable Network Graphics (.png) PNG Yes No
PCRaster (.map) PCRaster Yes Yes
Netpbm (.ppm,.pgm) PNM Yes No No limits
Swedish Grid RIK (.rik) RIK No Yes 4GB
RadarSat2 XML (product.xml) RS2 No Yes 4GB
ArcSDE Raster SDE No Yes --
USGS SDTS DEM (*CATD.DDF) SDTS No Yes --
Raster Matrix Format (*.rsw, .mtw) RMF Yes Yes 4GB
SAR CEOS SAR_CEOS No Yes --
SGI Image Format SGI No Yes --
SRTM HGT Format SRTMHGT No Yes --
USGS ASCII DEM (.dem) USGSDEM No Yes --
OGC Web Coverage Server WCS No Yes --
X11 Pixmap (.xpm) XPM Yes No
GSat File Format GFF No No --

1Maximum file size does 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 11997 2007-08-29 22:32:11Z warmerdam $