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:
 

* 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.