# GDAL Raster Formats

Long Format Name | Code | Creation1 | Copy2 | Georeferencing | Maximum file size3 | Compiled by default
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Arc/Info ASCII Grid | AAIGrid | No | Yes | Yes | 2GB | Yes
ACE2 | ACE2 | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
ADRG/ARC Digitilized Raster Graphics (.gen/.thf) | ADRG | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Arc/Info Binary Grid (.adf) | AIG | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
AIRSAR Polarimetric | AIRSAR | No | No | No | -- | Yes
Azavea Raster Grid | ARG | No | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Magellan BLX Topo (.blx, .xlb) | BLX | No | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Bathymetry Attributed Grid (.bag) | BAG | Yes | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libhdf5
Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap (.bmp) | BMP | Yes | Yes | Yes | 4GiB | Yes
BPG (Better Portable Graphics) | BPG | No | No | No | --- | No, needs libbpg (manual build required for now)
BSB Nautical Chart Format (.kap) | BSB | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes, can be disabled
VTP Binary Terrain Format (.bt) | BT | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Natural Resources Canada's Geoid BYN (.byn) | BYN | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
AutoCAD DWG Raster layer | CAD | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes (internal libopencad provided)
CALS Type I | CALS | No | Yes | No | -- | Yes
CEOS (Spot for instance) | CEOS | No | No | No | -- | Yes
DRDC COASP SAR Processor Raster | COASP | No | No | No | -- | Yes
TerraSAR-X Complex SAR Data Product | COSAR | No | No | No | -- | Yes
Convair PolGASP data | CPG | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
CTable2 Datum Grid Shift | CTable2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
USGS LULC Composite Theme Grid | CTG | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
DB2 | DB2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits | No, needs ODBC (and any or all of PNG, JPEG, WEBP drivers)
DirectDraw Surface | DDS | No | Yes | No |  | No, needs Crunch Lib
Derived | DERIVED | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
Spot DIMAP (metadata.dim) | DIMAP | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
ELAS DIPEx | DIPEx | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
DODS / OPeNDAP | DODS | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libdap
First Generation USGS DOQ (.doq) | DOQ1 | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
New Labelled USGS DOQ (.doq) | DOQ2 | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
Military Elevation Data (.dt0, .dt1, .dt2) | DTED | No | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Arc/Info Export E00 GRID | E00GRID | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
ECRG Table Of Contents (TOC.xml) | ECRGTOC | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
ERDAS Compressed Wavelets (.ecw) | ECW | Yes | Yes | Yes |  | No, needs ECW SDK
Google Earth Engine Data API Image | EEDAI | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libcurl
ESRI .hdr Labelled | EHdr | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes
Erdas Imagine Raw | EIR | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
NASA ELAS | ELAS | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
ENVI .hdr Labelled Raster | ENVI | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes
Epsilon - Wavelet compressed images | EPSILON | No | Yes | No | -- | No, needs EPSILON library
ERMapper (.ers) | ERS | Yes | Yes | Yes |  | Yes
Envisat Image Product (.n1) | ESAT | No | No | No | -- | Yes
EOSAT FAST Format | FAST | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
FIT | FIT | No | Yes | No | -- | Yes
FITS (.fits) | FITS | Yes | Yes | No | -- | No, needs libcfitsio
Fuji BAS Scanner Image | FujiBAS | No | No | No | -- | Yes
Generic Binary (.hdr Labelled) | GENBIN | No | No | No | -- | Yes
GeoPackage | GPKG | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits | No, needs libsqlite3 (and any or all of PNG, JPEG, WEBP drivers)
Oracle Spatial GeoRaster | GEORASTER | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits | No, needs Oracle client libraries
GSat File Format | GFF | No | No | No | -- | Yes
Graphics Interchange Format (.gif) | GIF | No | Yes | No | 2GB | Yes (internal GIF library provided)
WMO GRIB1/GRIB2 (.grb) | GRIB | No | Yes | Yes | 2GB | Yes, can be disabled
GMT Compatible netCDF | GMT | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2GB | No, needs libnetcdf
GRASS Raster Format | GRASS | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libgrass
GRASS ASCII Grid | GRASSASCIIGrid | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
Golden Software ASCII Grid | GSAG | No | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Golden Software Binary Grid | GSBG | Yes | Yes | Yes | 4GiB (32767x32767 of 4 bytes each + 56 byte header) | Yes
Golden Software Surfer 7 Binary Grid | GS7BG | Yes | Yes | Yes | 4GiB | Yes
GSC Geogrid | GSC | No | No | No | -- | Yes
Generic Tagged Arrays (.gta) | GTA | No | Yes | Yes |  | No, needs libgta
TIFF / BigTIFF / GeoTIFF (.tif) | GTiff | Yes | 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 |  | Yes
GXF - Grid eXchange File | GXF | No | No | Yes | 4GiB | Yes
Hierarchical Data Format Release 4 (HDF4) | HDF4 | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2GiB | No, needs libdf
Hierarchical Data Format Release 5 (HDF5) | HDF5 | No | No | Yes | 2GiB | No, needs libhdf5
HF2/HFZ heightfield raster | HF2 | No | Yes | Yes | - | Yes
Erdas Imagine (.img) | HFA | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits4 | Yes
Image Display and Analysis (WinDisp) | IDA | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2GB | Yes
IGN-France height correction ASCII grids | IGNFHeightASCIIGrid | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
ILWIS Raster Map (.mpr,.mpl) | ILWIS | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Intergraph Raster | INGR | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2GiB | Yes
IRIS | IRIS | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
ISCE raster | ISCE | Yes | Yes | No | -- | Yes
USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 2) | ISIS2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
USGS Astrogeology ISIS cube (Version 3) | ISIS3 | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
JAXA PALSAR Product Reader (Level 1.1/1.5) | JAXAPALSAR | No | No | No | -- | Yes
Japanese DEM (.mem) | JDEM | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
JPEG JFIF (.jpg) | JPEG | No | Yes | Yes | 4GiB (max dimensions 65500x65500) | Yes (internal libjpeg provided)
JPEG-LS | JPEGLS | No | Yes | No | -- | No, needs CharLS library
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JPEG2000 | No | Yes | Yes | 2GiB | No, needs libjasper
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JP2ECW | Yes | Yes | Yes | 500MB | No, needs ECW SDK
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JP2KAK | No | Yes | Yes | No limits | No, needs Kakadu library
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JP2Lura | No | Yes | Yes |  | No, needs Lurawave library
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JP2MrSID | No | Yes | Yes |  | No, needs MrSID SDK
JPEG2000 (.jp2, .j2k) | JP2OpenJPEG | No | Yes | Yes |  | No, needs OpenJPEG library (v2)
JPIP (based on Kakadu) | JPIPKAK | No | No | Yes |  | No, needs Kakadu library
KEA | KEA | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | No, needs libkea and libhdf5 libraries
KMLSUPEROVERLAY | KMLSUPEROVERLAY | No | Yes | Yes |  | Yes
KRO | KRO | Yes | Yes | No | -- | Yes
NOAA Polar Orbiter Level 1b Data Set (AVHRR) | L1B | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
Erdas 7.x .LAN and .GIS | LAN | No | No | Yes | 2GB | Yes
FARSITE v.4 LCP Format | LCP | No | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes
Daylon Leveller Heightfield | Leveller | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2GB | Yes
NADCON .los/.las Datum Grid Shift | LOSLAS | No | No | Yes |  | Yes
MBTiles | MBTiles | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | No (needs OGR SQLite driver)
OziExplorer .MAP | MAP | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
In Memory Raster | MEM | Yes | Yes | Yes |  | Yes
Vexcel MFF | MFF | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes
Vexcel MFF2 | MFF2 (HKV) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes
MG4 Encoded Lidar | MG4Lidar | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs LIDAR SDK
Meta Raster Format | MRF | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database | MrSID | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs MrSID SDK
Meteosat Second Generation | MSG | No | No | Yes |  | No, needs msg library
EUMETSAT Archive native (.nat) | MSGN | No | No | Yes |  | Yes
NLAPS Data Format | NDF | No | No | Yes | No limits | Yes
NOAA NGS Geoid Height Grids | NGSGEOID | No | No | Yes |  | Yes
NITF (.ntf, .nsf, .gn?, .hr?, .ja?, .jg?, .jn?, .lf?, .on?, .tl?, .tp?, etc.) | NITF | Yes | Yes | Yes | 10GB | Yes
NextGIS Web rasters | NGW | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libcurl
NetCDF | netCDF | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2GB | No, needs libnetcdf
NTv1 Datum Grid Shift | NTv1 | No | No | Yes |  | Yes
NTv2 Datum Grid Shift | NTv2 | Yes | Yes | Yes |  | Yes
Northwood/VerticalMapper Classified Grid Format .grc/.tab | NWT_GRC | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
Northwood/VerticalMapper Numeric Grid Format .grd/.tab | NWT_GRD | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
OZI OZF2/OZFX3 | OZI | No | No | Yes | -- | No
PCI .aux Labelled | PAux | Yes | Yes | No | No limits | Yes
PCI Geomatics Database File | PCIDSK | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes
PCRaster | PCRaster | Yes | Yes | Yes |  | Yes (internal libcsf provided)
Geospatial PDF | PDF | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes (but needs libpoppler, libpodofo or PDFium for read support)
NASA Planetary Data System | PDS | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
NASA Planetary Data System (Version 4) | PDS4 | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Planet Labs Mosaics API | PLMosaic | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libcurl
Portable Network Graphics (.png) | PNG | Yes | Yes | No |  | Yes (internal libpng provided)
PostGIS Raster (previously WKTRaster) | PostGISRaster | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs PostgreSQL library
Netpbm (.ppm,.pgm) | PNM | Yes | Yes | No | No limits | Yes
PHOTOMOD raster file (.prf,.x-dem) | PRF | No | No | Yes | No limits | Yes
R Object Data Store | R | No | Yes | No | -- | Yes
Rasdaman | RASDAMAN | No | No | No | No limits | No (needs raslib)
Rasterlite - Rasters in SQLite DB | Rasterlite | No | Yes | Yes | -- | No (needs OGR SQLite driver)
Rasterlite2 - Rasters in SQLite DB | SQLite | No | No | Yes | -- | No (needs libsqlite3, librasterlite2, libspatialite)
DigitalGlobe Raster Data Access | RDA | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libcurl
Swedish Grid RIK (.rik) | RIK | No | No | Yes | 4GB | Yes (internal zlib is used if necessary)
Raster Matrix Format (*.rsw, .mtw) | RMF | Yes | Yes | Yes | 4GB | Yes
ROI_PAC Raster | ROI_PAC | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Raster Product Format/RPF (CADRG, CIB) | RPFTOC | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
RadarSat2 XML (product.xml) | RS2 | No | No | Yes | 4GB | Yes
R Raster (.grd) | RRASTER | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Yes
Idrisi Raster | RST | Yes | Yes | Yes | No limits | Yes
Sentinel 1 SAR SAFE (manifest.safe) | SAFE | No | No | Yes | No limits | Yes
Sentinel 2 | SENTINEL2 | No | No | Yes | No limits | Yes
SAGA GIS Binary format | SAGA | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
SAR CEOS | SAR_CEOS | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
ArcSDE Raster | SDE | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs ESRI SDE
USGS SDTS DEM (*CATD.DDF) | SDTS | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
SGI Image Format | SGI | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Scaled Integer Gridded DEM | SIGDEM | No | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Snow Data Assimilation System | SNODAS | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
Standard Raster Product (ASRP/USRP) | SRP | No | No | Yes | 2GB | Yes
SRTM HGT Format | SRTMHGT | No | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
Terragen Heightfield (.ter) | TERRAGEN | Yes | Yes | No | -- | Yes
EarthWatch/DigitalGlobe .TIL | TIL | No | No | No | -- | Yes
TerraSAR-X Product | TSX | No | No | No | -- | Yes
USGS ASCII DEM / CDED (.dem) | USGSDEM | No | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
VICAR | VICAR | No | No | Yes | -- | Yes
GDAL Virtual (.vrt) | VRT | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
OGC Web Coverage Service | WCS | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libcurl
WEBP | WEBP | No | Yes | No | -- | No, needs libwebp
OGC Web Map Service, and TMS, WorldWind, On Earth tiled, VirtualEarth, ArcGIS REST, IIP) | WMS | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libcurl
OGC Web Map Tile Service | WMTS | No | No | Yes | -- | No, needs libcurl
X11 Pixmap (.xpm) | XPM | No | Yes | No |  | Yes
ASCII Gridded XYZ | XYZ | No | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes
ZMap Plus Grid | ZMap | No | Yes | Yes |  | Yes

1Creation of a new dataset from scratch

2Copy from an existing source dataset

3Maximum file size is not only determined by the file format itself, but operating system/file system capabilities as well. Look here for details.

4ERDAS Imagine has different file format for large files, where 32-bit pointers cannot be used. Look for details here.

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