Data management for military data

You can work with National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) data formats in ArcGIS, including:

ArcGIS capabilities that simplify your work with these data formats include the following:

Descriptions of NGA data formats

Common military data formats include RPF, DTED, and NITF. RPF data can be categorized into two further types: CADRG/ECRG and CIB rasters. CADRG/ECRG rasters are georeferenced scanned images of NGA hardcopy products and are used as basemaps for other GIS layers. CIB rasters are panchromatic (black and white) imagery in either 1-, 5-, or 10-meter resolution and are also used as basemaps.

DTED rasters are elevation rasters of three resolution levels: Level 0 at 30 arc-seconds (approximately 1,000 meters), Level 1 at 3 arc-seconds (approximately 100 meters), and Level 2 at 1 arc-second (approximately 30 meters). Each DTED dataset covers an area of 1 degree of longitude by 1 degree of latitude.

NITF imagery is used for intelligence analysis. The NITF standard allows for storage of multiple images within a single NITF file. NITF files can also include other types of information, such as graphics and text.

RPF (CADRG/ECRG and CIB), DTED, and NITF have published specifications that define the format and structure of the data. The following table lists the format and related specification documents:

Related Topics


4/22/2011