Open External File

Feature Description

SuperMap iDesktopX supports directly opening external vector files, image files, and vector file folders. After opening, a data source with the same name as the file will be added to the workspace, and the file becomes a dataset within that data source. This approach reduces the operational cost of using third-party data, simplifies workflows, and makes data management more efficient.

The supported data formats are as follows:

Type Supported Formats
Vector File *.shp、*.mif、*.tab、*.dwg、*.dxf、*.dgn、*.kml、*.kmz、*.wal、*.wan、*.wap、*.wat、*.csv、*.dbf、*.000、*.vct、*.json、*.geojson、*.gpkg、*.mdb、*.e00、*.gdb、*.meta
Image Files *.sit、*.bmp、*.jpg、*.jpeg、*.png、*.tif、*.tiff、*.img、*.sci、*.gif、*.xml、*.ecw、*.sid、*.bil、*.jp2、*.j2k、*.tpk、*.nc、*.grb、*.GRIB2、*.HDF、*.adf、*.pix、*.txt
Vector File Folder *.gdb
Spreadsheet *.xlsx

Function Entries

  • File tab -> Open button -> File
  • Start tab -> Datasource group -> select File -> Open File Datasource
  • Workspace Manager panel -> Datasource node context menu -> Open File Datasource
  • Open directly by dragging and dropping files

Operation Steps

Open Vector File

SuperMap can read various vector data formats created by non-SuperMap platforms, including: *.shp, *.dbf, *.mif, *.tab, *.dwg, *.dxf, *.e00, *.wal, *.geojson, etc. Among them, some vector data supports direct operations such as query and editing. For detailed instructions, please refer to Third-party Vector Data Direct Read/Write Guide.

The operation instructions for opening external vector files are as follows:

  1. In the workspace datasource node context menu, select Open File Datasource....
  2. In the pop-up Open File Datasource dialog box, select the vector file to open.
  3. Then the Open Vector File dialog box pops up, set the opening parameters as needed. For specific parameter descriptions, please refer to the links in the table below.
    Note:

    To repeatedly open a file, opening from the Recently used in the Catalog Manager panel will retain the previously set parameters and no dialog box will pop up; if using Open File Datasource or opening by dragging and dropping from a folder, the set parameters will not be retained and need to be reset.

  4. Click the OK button to open the vector file into the workspace. Except for GeoPackage and GDB files, other vector files can only be opened as read-only data sources, and geometric feature editing, attribute editing, and other operations cannot be performed after opening.

The opened vector file can be used as source data for analysis tools, or the analysis result can be directly exported to external common file formats. The specific support is as shown in the table below:

Format Direct Open Direct Edit Analysis Export
*.shp √ × √ √
*.gdb √ √ √ √
*.gpkg √ √ √ ×
*.geojson √ × √ ×
*.dwg、*.dxf、*.dgn √ × √ ×
*.mif、*.tab、*wor √ × √ ×
*.wal、*.wan、*.wap、*.wat √ × √ ×
*.kmz、*.kml √ × √ ×
*.000 (S-57、S-101、CJ-57) √ × √ ×
*.mdb √ × √ ×
*.vct √ × √ ×
*.e00 √ × √ ×
*.csv √ × × ×

Open Image Files

  1. In the workspace datasource node context menu, select Open File Datasource....
  2. In the pop-up Open File Datasource dialog box, select the image files to open.
  3. Click the Open button to open the image files as read-only data sources into the workspace. Among them, single-band 16-bit and 32-bit floating-point image files become raster datasets after direct opening.

Open Vector File Folder

Currently supported vector file folder types:  File GDB file.

For detailed operations, please refer to Open File Geodatabase.

Open Spreadsheet

Supports directly opening Excel files and viewing them as attribute tables in read-only mode. The specific operation method is as follows:

  1. In the workspace manager, right-click the datasource node and select the Open File Datasource... item.
  2. In the pop-up dialog box, select the Excel file to browse, and click the Open button to pop up the Excel Browse Parameter Settings dialog box. Browsing Excel supports two methods: browsing the first 1000 records and viewing all data. If you check "1st row as header", the first row of the Excel sheet can be set as the attribute table field.
  3. After clicking OK, the Excel file will be converted into a tabular dataset, and you can browse by double-clicking to open it.

Related Topics

Open Datasource

New Datasource