Support for Common GIS Data Formats

Use CAD data and more than 70 other file types without conversion.

The concept of data integration—spatially combining different data sets for visual and analytical purposes—is fundamental to GIS. ArcGIS is unique in its ability to incorporate, maintain, and apply more than 100 fundamentally different digital data formats. GIS users commonly employ vector features in many formats, raster imagery, CAD drawings, tables, survey and COGO measurements, GPS observations, linear referencing systems, and data in profiles such as Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER), GML, and Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS).

In recent years, GIS has evolved into an information system that links activities to databases maintained through transactions that serve a myriad of applications. Many of these systems, started on the departmental level and now serve enterprises in a manner similar to ERP software.