[OSGeo-Discuss] idea for an OSGeo project -- a new, open data format

[Gary Sherman]

On Nov 13, 2007, at 6:42 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

> o RDBMS style operations like SQL filtering, joins, etc.
> o Get past all the shapefile limitations related to the .dbf format  
> (very
>   restricted data types, short attribute names, lots of other limits)
> o Allow storing many layers in one file.
> o Built in spatial indexing and attribute indexing.
> o OGC style coordinate system and geometry support.


This idea has been kicked around for a long time, in fact I did some  
preliminary work on it a couple of years ago to help identify the  
issues/challenges in such an implementation.

I'm pretty much aligned with Frank's goals (quoted above). I see it as  
more than a "shapefile" replacement. It can be a container for  
multiple layers with SQL functionality. This allows you to not only  
package up everything for a project (web or desktop) but also have the  
power and flexibility of an RDBMS.

-gary

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Gary Sherman
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