Geospatial PDF is a set of

geospatial Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also call ...

extensions to the

Portable Document Format Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

(PDF) 1.7 specification to include information that relates a region in the document page to a region in physical space — called

georeferencing Georeferencing means that the internal coordinate system of a map or aerial photo image can be related to a geographic coordinate system. The relevant coordinate transforms are typically stored within the image file ( GeoPDF and GeoTIFF are exam ...

. A geospatial PDF can contain geometry such as points, lines, and polygons. These, for example, could represent building locations, road networks and city boundaries, respectively. The georeferencing metadata for geospatial PDF is most commonly encoded in one of two ways: the OGC best practice; and as Adobe's proposed geospatial extensions to

ISO 32000 Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

. The specifications also allow geometry to have attributes, such as a name or identifying type. ISO 32000-2 ( PDF 2.0), completed in 2017, incorporates geospatial PDF features.

Overview

The popularity of

geographic information systems A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a br ...

(GIS) and

geospatial technology Geoinformatics is the science and the technology which develops and uses information science infrastructure to address the problems of geography, cartography, geosciences and related branches of science and engineering, such as Land Surveying. O ...

amongst its users has increased the need to share information. However, an obstacle to sharing geospatial data can sometimes be the large file sizes or that the end recipient does not have the appropriate software or reader. The PDF format is widely accepted and is considered the de facto standard for printable documents on the web. This means that users do not require the any proprietary plug-in to read geospatial PDFs created following the PDF 1.7 specification, which was published as ISO 32000-1 standard. In this vein, some features commonly associated with geospatial PDF are simply features of PDF: * Graphically represent

vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...

and

raster Raster may refer to: * Raster graphics, graphical techniques using arrays of pixel values * Raster graphics editor, a computer program * Raster scan, the pattern of image readout, transmission, storage, and reconstruction in television and compu ...

information (content and imaging model, PDF 1.0) * Separate graphics content into different

layers Layer or layered may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Layers'' (Kungs album) * ''Layers'' (Les McCann album) * ''Layers'' (Royce da 5'9" album) *"Layers", the title track of Royce da 5'9"'s sixth studio album *Layer, a female Maveric ...

(optional content, PDF 1.5) * Associate of tabular information with graphical features (user properties, PDF 1.6)

Uses

There are many uses for a geospatial PDF. After importing geospatial data into PDF, one can use the data in a variety of ways: * Find and mark location coordinates. * Measure distance, perimeter, and area. * Change the coordinate system and measurement units. * Copy location coordinates to the clipboard, and then use them to show locations in several

web mapping Web mapping or an online mapping is the process of using maps, usually created through geographic information systems (GIS), on the Internet, more specifically in the World Wide Web (WWW). A web map or an online map is both served and consumed, t ...

services. * Register a raster image to create a geospatially aware PDF.

Support

There are several software developers that adhere to the PDF 1.7 specification for writing geospatial PDF files: * Avenza Systems * Bentley * Cadcorp * ESRI * Pitney Bowes * QGIS * SAFE Software * TerraGo Technologies * Hexagon Geospatial * SDI

References

{{Reflist

External links

Avenza MAPublisher and Geographic Imager Geospatial PDF Export

MapInfo Professional User Guide

PDF Maps app for Apple iOS

SAFE Software PDF writer specification
Adobe Inc. GIS vector file formats

Overview

Uses

Support

See also

References

External links