Supported data formats

Table of Contents

This page contains a list of supported data formats within OPALS.

General remarks

The following abbreviations are used to indicate the file access type:

  • ro: read only
  • rw: read/write

Supported vector formats

  • LAS (rw): ASPRS LAS file format and its compressed counterpart LAZ
  • SHP (rw): ESRI shape file format *)
  • WNP (rw): SCOP Winput (ASCII)
  • BWNP (rw): Binary SCOP Winput
  • XYZ (rw): X-Y-Z data (ASCII)
  • BXYZ (rw): Binary X-Y-Z (values written as binary doubles)
  • SDW (rw): Riegl Sample Data World file format
  • SDC (rw): Riegl Sample Data in the scanner's own coordinate system
  • FWF (rw): Full-waveform data format (I.P.F.)
  • TRJ (rw): ASCII trajectory file format with two different column order. A heuristic is used to determine the column order automatically. See section Trajectory file for further details.
    • Format 1: x, y, z, gps time, roll, pitch and yaw
    • Format 2: gps time, x, y, z, roll, pitch and yaw
  • BTRJ (rw): Binary trajectory file format with two different column order (see above). Please note that x, y, z, gps time are written as doubles and the angles roll, pitch and yaw as floats
  • OFD (rw): Generic text or binary format using a OPALS Format Definition

*) Please note, that ESRI shape file output is only available in Module Bounds and Module TIN at the moment.

Vector formats that support storage of TIN topology

  • REB (rw): Regelungen für die elektronische Bauabrechnung. Limited to 3 decimal places and coordinates smaller than 107 (10 Mio.)
  • UCD (w): Unstructured Cell Data is commonly used in structural analysis and computational fluid dynamics. Defined by Advanced Visual Systems Inc. (AVS)
  • TIN (rw): OPALS binary format for TIN storage

Supported grid/raster formats

Reading and writing of grid/raster data is performed using the GDAL (GeoData Abstraction Library). The following list is a subset of all GDAL supported data formats currently tested for OPALS.

  • GTiff (rw): GeoTIFF
  • SCOP (rw): SCOP DTM (.dtm)
  • AAIGrid (rw): Arc/Info ASCII Grid
  • USGSDEM (rw): USGS Optional ASCII DEM (and CDED)
  • SDTS (ro): SDTS Raster
  • DTED (rw): DTED Elevation Raster
  • ENVI (rw): ENVI .hdr Labelled
  • EHdr (rw): ESRI .hdr Labelled
  • NITF (rw): National Imagery Transmission Format
  • HFA (rw): Erdas Imagine Images (.img)
  • EIR (ro): Erdas Imagine Raw
  • AIG (ro): Arc/Info Binary Grid
  • JDEM (ro): Japanese DEM (.mem)
  • CEOS (ro): CEOS Image
  • PNG (rw): Portable Network Graphics
  • JPEG (rw): JPEG JFIF
  • JPEG 2000 (rw): .jp2
  • GIF (rw): Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
  • XPM (rw): X11 PixMap Format
  • BMP (rw): MS Windows Device Independent Bitmap
  • GenBin (ro): Generic Binary (.hdr Labelled)

Raster formats for visualization

Please note that visualization modules like Module ZColor or Module Shade only support a subset of the supported raster formats commonly used in image processing programs:

  • GTiff (rw): GeoTIFF
  • PNG (rw): Portable Network Graphics
  • JPEG (rw): JPEG JFIF
  • GIF (rw): Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
  • XPM (rw): X11 PixMap Format
  • BMP (rw): MS Windows Device Independent Bitmap