Appendix A - Common File Types and Icons in ArcGIS
Vector | ||
Polyline |
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A spatial file. Contains only polylines. Green= shapefile; Blue= feature class |
Polygon |
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A spatial file. Contain only polygons. Green= shapefile; Blue= feature class |
Point |
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A spatial file. Contains only points. Green= shapefile; Blue= feature class |
Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) | ![]() |
A vector representation of elevation the vertical distance between local mean sea level the measurement above or below the global average at a single point on the Earth's surface used for recording the elevation of topographic surface a detailed map of the surface features of land. It includes the mountains, hills, creeks, and other bumps and lumps on a particular hunk of earth. The word is a Greek-rooted combo of topos meaning "place" and graphein "to write." 's relief the difference between the highest and lowest point within a particular area while landforms are the descriptive words for individual features and a single point on the Earth's surface over a landscape |
Network Dataset | ![]() ![]() |
Network Datasets are used to create complex analysis of transportation networks utilizing detailed attributes regarding how each feature interacts with the others. Green= outside geodatabase; Black= inside geodatabase |
Raster | ||
Raster (Image file) | ![]() ![]() |
Any image file. May or may not be associated with spatial data. Yellow= outside geodatabase; Blue= inside geodatabase |
Organization | ||
Geodatabase | ![]() |
The biggest “container” for spatial data. Can contain vector or raster data. |
Feature Dataset | ![]() |
A container for similar vector files. Can contain points, lines, or polygons (not rasters). |
Raster Catalog | ![]() |
Collections of rasters which are organized and defined by a key. Can not contain vectors. |
Topology | ![]() |
A GIS topology is a set of rules and behaviors that model how points, lines, and polygons share coincident geometry. |
Tables | ||
Excel Table | ![]() |
Excel table. Contains non-spatial data. Often is ‘joined’ or ‘related’ to spatial data. |
Other Data Table (various kinds) | ![]() ![]() |
Tables without the specific .xls file extension. May contain non-spatial numeric or text data, or may contain numeric data associated with a spatial object. Tables are not specifically spatial, but often make up a crucial part of spatial data. |
Other Icons | ||
Text File | ![]() |
Text files are used for any sort of textual or paragraph data storage, such as metadata (information about the spatial data) or methods/other notes. While ArcGIS can read text files, they do not serve any sort of analysis purpose for us. |