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BP SpatialDataFormats
From Spatial Data on the Web Working Group
This page documents the progress on ACTION-98.
This focusses on "formats" for vector data(sets), i.e. features / spatial things.
| GML | GML-SF0 | JSON-LD | GeoSPARQL (vocabulary) | schema.org | GeoJSON | KML | GeoPackage | Shapefile | GeoServices / Esri JSON | Mapbox Vector Tiles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Governing Body | OGC, ISO | OGC | W3C | OGC | Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Yandex | Authors (now in IETF process) | OGC | OGC | Esri | Esri | Mapbox |
| Based on | XML | GML | JSON | RDF | HTML with RDFa, Microdata, JSON-LD | JSON | XML | SQLite, SF SQL | dBASE | JSON | Google protocol buffers |
| Requires authoring of a vocabulary/schema for my data (or use of existing ones) | Yes (using XML Schema) | Yes (using XML Schema) | Yes (using @context) | Yes (using RDF schema) | No, schema.org specifies a vocabulary that should be used | No | No | Implicitly (SQLite tables) | Implicitly (dBASE table) | No | No |
| Supports reuse of third party vocabularies for features and properties | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Supports extensions (geometry types, metadata, etc.) | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No (under discussion in IETF) | Yes (rarely used except by Google) | Yes | No | No | No |
| Supports non-simple property values | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (in practice: not used) | No | No | No | No | No |
| Supports multiple values per property | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (in practice: not used) | No | No | No | No | No |
| Supports multiple geometries per feature | Yes | Yes | n/a | Yes | Yes (but probably not in practice?) | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Support for Coordinate Reference Systems | any | any | n/a | many | WGS84 latitude, longitude | WGS84 longitude, latitude with optional elevation | WGS84 longitude, latitude with optional elevation | many | many | many | WGS84 spherical mercator projection |
| Support for non-linear interpolations in curves | Yes | Only arcs | n/a | Yes (using GML) | No | No | No | Yes, in an extension | No | No | No |
| Support for non-planar interpolations in surfaces | Yes | No | n/a | Yes (using GML) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Support for solids (3D) | Yes | Yes | n/a | Yes (using GML) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Feature in a feature collection document has URI (required for ★★★★) | Yes, via XML ID | Yes, via XML ID | Yes, via @id keyword | Yes | Yes, via HTML ID | No | Yes, via XML ID | No | No | No | No |
| Support for hyperlinks (required for ★★★★★) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Media type | application/gml+xml | application/gml+xml with profile parameter | application/ld+json | application/rdf+xml, application/ld+json, etc. | text/html | application/vnd.geo+json | application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml, application/vnd.google-earth.kmz | - | - | - | - |
| Remarks | comprehensive and supporting many use cases, but requires strong XML skills | simplified profile of GML | no support for spatial data, a GeoJSON-LD is under discussion | GeoSPARQL also specifies related extension functions for SPARQL; other geospatial vocabularies exist, see ??? | schema.org markup is indexed by major search engines | supported by many mapping APIs | focussed on visualisation of and interaction with spatial data, typically in Earth browsers liek Google Earth | used to support "native" access to geospatial data across all enterprise and personal computing environments, including mobile devices | supported by almost all GIS | mainly used via the GeoServices REST API | used for sharing geospatial data in tiles, mainly for display in maps |
