# File Access

OpenEV supports a number of raster and vector file formats for display. The File->Open action will check to see if the selected file is a shapefile (ends in .shp) and if so attempt to load it as a new vector layer. If not, it will attempt to open it as a GDAL supported file format (listed below), and display it as a raster layer. If this fails, the optional OGR library is tried to see if it is another supported vector format.

Note that the File->Import action only operates on GDAL supported raster files. Vector files cannot be "imported".

## Supported Raster Formats

OpenEV uses GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Library) for accessing raster files, so any file formats supported by GDAL should be supported by OpenEV. The original, and authoritative list of GDAL Supported Formats should be checked for a current format list, and details of each format.

Long Format Name | Code | Georeferencing
--- | --- | ---
Arc/Info Binary Grid | AIG | Yes
CEOS (Spot for instance) | CEOS | No
First Generation USGS DOQ | DOQ1 | Yes
New Labelled USGS DOQ | DOQ2 | Yes
Military Elevation Data | DTED | Yes
Eosat Fast Format | EFF | No
ESRI .hdr Labelled | EHdr | Yes
Arc/Info Binary Grid | GIO | Yes
TIFF / GeoTIFF | GTiff | Yes
Erdas Imagine .hfa | HFA | No
Atlantis HKV Blob | HKV | Yes
JPEG JFIF | JPEG | Yes
Atlantis MFF | MFF | Yes
PCI .aux Labelled | PAux | No
Portable Network Graphics | PNG | No
USGS SDTS DEM | SDTS | Yes
SAR CEOS | SAR_CEOS | Yes

## Supported Vector Formats

OpenEV includes builtin support for reading and writing ESRI Shapefiles. This is a widely used file format for simple vector features with attributes, including support for points, polylines and polygonal areas (potentially with holes).

Additional formats can be read via an optional linkage to the OGR vector library, providing support for formats such as Mapinfo, SDTS, S-57, Tiger, and NTF.