Data exchange formats
You can use several different GIS data exchange formats for spatial data.
- Well-known text representation
You can generate a geometry from the OGC well-known text (WKT) representation. The WKT is an ASCII text-formatted string that allows geometry to be exchanged in ASCII text form. - Well-known binary representation
You can generate a geometry from the OGC well-known binary (WKB) representation. The WKB representation is a contiguous stream of bytes. It permits geometry to be exchanged between a client application and an SQL database in binary form. - ESRI shape representation
You can generate a geometry from an ESRI shape representation. In addition to the two-dimensional representation supported by the Open GIS well-known binary representation, the ESRI shape representation also supports optional Z coordinates and measures. - Geography Markup Language representation
You can generate a geometry from a Geography Markup Language (GML) representation. The GML can be represented as either GML2 (OGC GML standard 2.1.2) or GML3 (OGC GML standard 3.1.1). In addition to the two-dimensional representation supported by the Open GIS well-known binary representation, the GML representation also supports optional Z coordinates and measures. - Keyhole Markup Language representation
You can generate a geometry from a Keyhole Markup Language (KML) representation. KML is an XML-based schema for expressing geographic annotation and visualization on online maps and earth browsers.
Parent topic: Spatial Data User's Guide
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