Home    |    Concepts   |   API   |   Samples
Concepts > Geometry
Representations of Geometry

ArcSDE provides support for a number of documented geometry representations for data exchange. These representations are referred to as well-known representations because they are documented, and in most cases, widely available.

The following geometry representations are ISO and OGC standards:

Text Representations
Binary Representations
ESRI Shape Representation
ArcSDE Compressed Binary Representation

Not all of these representations of geometry support the same geometric properties. The following table illustrates some of the differences:
 

Geometry Representation Specification maintained by Encoding Supports 2D Supports Elevations Supports Measures Supports CAD
Well-known text ISO/OGC ASCII Yes Yes* Yes* No
Well-known binary ISO/OGC Binary Yes No No No
Shapefile ESRI Binary Yes Yes Yes Yes
ArcSDE binary ESRI Binary Yes Yes Yes Yes

* Additional tags have been added by ESRI to support Elevations and Measures

Functions are provided in the ArcSDE C, JAVA, and SQL interfaces to import and export geometric objects in the well-known text, well-known binary, and shape representations. Functions are not provided to directly manipulate the ArcSDE compressed binary, but access can be gained through standard SQL queries.

feedback | privacy | legal