Exporting and Importing Data

Choose from a wide range of raster and vector file formats to export data from QuickMap, or Import into QuickMap.

Exporting Data

Most property and Topographic data in QuickMap may be exported from QuickMap in a wide range of raster and vector file formats, and freely distributed in other software packages. Data may be exported in over 60 different Coordinate Systems for export. 

Importing Data

QuickMap supports a wide range of file formats for import. Virtually all NZ projections are supported for import, including Local Circuit coordinate systems.

The following file formats are supported for import and export:

 Format  Description
SHP Supported for export and import. The ESRI Shape File Format is a digital vector (non-topological) storage format for storing geometric location and associated attribute information. The Shapefile format is created by ArcView and can be used by ArcView, ARC/INFO, ArcGIS and other widely used GIS software. A Shapefile stores map (geographic) features and attribute data as a collection of files having the same prefix and the following file extensions.

  • .shp – Contains the feature geometries.
  • .shx – The shp file index.
  • .dbf – dBASE file that containing the feature attributes.
  • .prj – Projection definition for the features.
DXF Supported for export. The Drawing Interchange file format (DXF) is an ASCII file vector format used by AutoCAD which is the Copyright(C) of Autodesk, Inc. This format is supported by many other CAD and GIS Applications, and is also supported by QuickMap with the following constraints:All QuickMap Geometries are exported as lines. Click here for sample.
WKT Supported for export and import. Well Known Text (WKT) is an ASCII file vector format defined by the Open GIS Consortium (OGIS) to represent a geometry. Geometry is a term adopted by the Open GIS Consortium to define two dimensional data. The well-known text representation of geometry provides a standard textual representation for spatial data. When exporting data from QuickMap in WKT, QuickMap will also add attribute data to the file in fields delimited by the ‘|’ character. For example, one line of exported contour data may look as follows:

  • 1641|140|1 LINESTRING ( 2681039.10 6010000.00, 2681035.81 6009994.71, 2676834.90 6009987.99, 2676839.50 6010000.29)

In this example, 1641 is the unique identifier for that contour, 140 is the contour height and the remainder is the Geometry for that feature. Click here for sample.
MIF/MID Supported for export and import. The MapInfo Interchange Format (MIF) is an ASCII file vector format which allows generic data to be attached to a variety of graphical items. It works on all platforms supported by MapInfo. Mapinfo data is in two files — the graphical data resides in a .MIF file and textual data is contained in a .MID file. The textual data is delimited data, with one row per record and either Carriage Return, Carriage Return plus Line Feed, or Line Feed between lines. The MIF file has two areas — the file header area and the data section. Information on how to create MapInfo tables is in the header; the graphical object definitions are in the data section.
 TAB Supported for export and import. TAB format is the native file format of MapInfo. Tab files store both feature geometry and attributes. A logical MapInfo TAB file consists of several physical files, having the following file name extensions:

  • .tab The main file for a MapInfo table, it is associated with the appropriate DAT, MAP, ID, and IND files
  • .dat Tabular data for a table in MapInfo’s native format.
  • .id An index to a MapInfo graphical objects (MAP) file.
  • .map Contains geographic information describing map objects.
  • .ind An index to a MapInfo tabular (DAT) file.
 DGN Supported for export and import. Microstation Design File Format (DGN) is the internal format used by Bentley Systems Inc.’s MicroStation, a CAD program. It is well documented and standardized, so it may also be used as a transfer standard. DGN files contain detailed display information. The most common way to store attributes is to place them in an external database file and record links in the MSLINK field-a data item carried for each element in the DGN file.
 GML Supported for export. Geography Markup language (GML) is an XML based encoding standard for geographic information developed by the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC). The main purpose of GML is to provide a standard means of representing information about geospatial features-their geometric properties, non-geometric properties, interrelationships, etc.
 UNL Supported for import. The Informix Export File Format (UNL) Informix Binary File Created by Informix’s UNLOAD Command.
 WAY  Supported for import. The WAY file is an ASCII Vector format file. If your GPS does not support NMEA protocol, or cannot download waypoints using NMEA then you can still download the data from your GPS unit by Importing a waypoint file.To download waypoints from a waypoint file: Download GPS TrackMaker from www.gpstm.com (this software will support almost every GPS unit interface). Using this free software save your GPS data as a waypoint file. From QuickMap select File>import and you will be presented with the following import box that will enable you to browse to your waypoint file and then import it.
 CRS Supported for import. The CRS File is a LINZ proprietary ASCII format file. It contains an ASCII header describing the contents of the file, followed by ‘|’ delimited fields of attribute and spatial data. Spatial data is represented in Modified Well Known Text format as described above.
 LIN  Supported for import. The LIN file is an ASCII vector format used to represent line data only in the form:

<id> <x> <y>

Where <id> is the features unique identifier if it is at the beginning of the feature, or 0 if it is one of the points of the feature, and x,y are the features coordinates.
 JPG Supported for export. The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPG) file is a raster format. 
 BMP Supported for export. The Windows Bitmap format (BMP) file is a raster format. 
 PNG Supported for export. The Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file is a raster format.
 TIF Supported for export. The Tag Image File Format (TIF) file is a raster format.
 TGA Supported for export. The Truevision TARGA Format file is a raster format.