how do i open geodatabases (*.gdb files)?

[Bill Thoen]

Can anyone tell me how to read a Geodatabase (*.gdb) file in a useful manner? I don't have MS Access nor ArcCatalog, but I've heard that esri has released an API for the format, and I was wondering if anyone has a translator yet?

    I'm trying to make sense of the Natural Earth data set ( http://www.naturalearthdata.com/ ) and they use those gdb files for the finishing touches on their maps. I'd like to see what data is in them.

TIA,

Bill Thoen

[Warren Vick]

Hi Bill,

 

I don’t think there’s any option other than to used Esri software to read a File Geodatabase. Even FME checks out an Esri licence to work on them. I think Natural Earth’s vector data is available as Shapefiles and that would be an easier route into Pro.

 

Regards,

Warren Vick

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[Bill Thoen]

So the gdb files sort of parallel the shape files? I've got the shape files, but it looks like there's a lot of data associated with them that's either over-engineered or redundant. I was hoping for something that could show me what's revelant and what's not and thought maybe there was something useful in the gdb files.

[Richard Greenwood]

ogr2ogr does fine with gdb and also the older .mdb personal geo-databses (and also just about every other vector and raster GIS data format). It's command line only, but Free and Open Source. If you're on Windows http://www.gisinternals.com/ is the best source for the latest releases, or http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/ has a slightly friendlier installer. On Debian/Ubuntu there are native packages. The command looks like:

   ogr2ogr -f "MapInfo file" outDirectory source.gdb layerName

to create a MapInfo Tab file in outDirectory. A .gdb can contain multiple layers, so to start off you might want to query it with:

   ogrinfo source.gdb

which will provide a list of layers within the .gdb and further 

   ogrinfo source.gdb layerName -so

will give you info about the specified layer.

I couldn't get thru the day without org/gdal. The time and effort required to learn the command line interface will pay itself back many fold.

Rich

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Richard W. Greenwood, PLS
www.greenwoodmap.com

[Bill Thoen]

Perfect! I'll give it a try tomorrow! I knew about ogr2ogr, but wasn't aware that it could also do geodatabses. But didn't it require some dll that you only got if you bought MS Access? Or has that been fixed now?

[Warren Vick]

Hi Bill,

 

File Geodatabases are more like a traditional DBMS as they contain multiple tables, rather than the “database=table” approach of Esri Shapefiles and MapInfo TAB sets. As far as I know, Geodatabases are a closed format whereas Shapefiles are well known (apart from the spatial index format, perhaps).

 

Regards,

Warren

[Warren Vick]

… I stand corrected. GDAL/OGR does indeed support File Geodatabases, so they are not as closed as a format as I thought.

 

Regards,

Warren

[Richard Greenwood]

The file gdb was a closed format for the first year or two of its existence and I believe that it's read-only in ogr so you're understanding was not misplaced. Maybe a a license is required to write fgdb's?

Rich

[Andrew Harfoot]

There are different flavours of ESRI GeoDatabases:

Personal GDBs use a MS Access DB as the container, with the normal .mdb extension, and accessing them in MI was possible a while back using the universal translator and copying a DLL from one of the ESRI free viewers.

File geodatabases use an ESRI proprietary structure, but as has been mentioned, there are two freely available libraries to access them. ESRI have released an API that allows read / write access to file GDBs, and there is an open source library that has reverse engineered the format to allow read only access (http://www.gdal.org/drv_openfilegdb.html). As already noted GDAL / OGR will allow conversion to and from geodatabases, and can be configured to use the ESRI API, allowing read / write access.

However, before heading off to install GDAL (although echoing Richard, I think you should have it anyway!), in MI 12.5 and 15 (and possibly earlier), both file and personal databases are accessible as standard via the Open Universal Data or Universal Translator.

Cheers,

Andy

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Andy Harfoot

GeoData Institute
University of Southampton
Southampton
SO17 1BJ

Tel:  +44 (0)23 8059 2719
Fax:  +44 (0)23 8059 2849

www.geodata.soton.ac.uk