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Understanding Drivers

Learn about GeoETL's driver system and supported geospatial formats.

What are Drivers?​

Drivers are modules that enable GeoETL to read from and write to different geospatial file formats. Think of them as translators that understand specific file formats.

Each driver has three capabilities:

  • Info: Read metadata about a dataset
  • Read: Load data from a file
  • Write: Save data to a file

Listing Available Drivers​

View all supported drivers:

geoetl-cli drivers

This shows a table with:

  • Short Name: The driver identifier you use in commands
  • Long Name: Full descriptive name
  • Info: Metadata support status
  • Read: Read capability status
  • Write: Write capability status

See also: Supported Drivers Reference - Complete driver documentation with examples and comparisons

Support Status​

Each capability has one of three statuses:

StatusMeaningAvailable?
SupportedFully implemented and working✅ Yes
PlannedWill be implemented in future🚧 Soon
Not SupportedNot planned for implementation❌ No

Currently Working Drivers​

CSV - Comma Separated Value​

Status: ✅ Fully Supported

Use cases:

  • Simple tabular data with geometries
  • Excel-compatible format
  • Data analysis and visualization

Geometry format: WKT (Well-Known Text)

Example:

geoetl-cli convert -i data.csv -o data.geojson \
  --input-driver CSV --output-driver GeoJSON \
  --geometry-column wkt

GeoJSON - Geographic JSON​

Status: ✅ Fully Supported

Use cases:

  • Web mapping applications
  • JavaScript/web development
  • Human-readable format
  • Version control friendly

Format: JSON with geometry objects

Example:

geoetl-cli convert -i data.geojson -o data.csv \
  --input-driver GeoJSON --output-driver CSV

GeoParquet - Columnar Geospatial Format​

Status: ✅ Fully Supported

Use cases:

  • Large-scale geospatial data (100M+ features)
  • Cloud storage optimization
  • Modern data pipelines (DuckDB, Apache Arrow, Spark)
  • High-performance analytics (columnar format)
  • Efficient archival storage

Geometry format: WKB (Well-Known Binary) with GeoArrow types

Performance highlights:

  • High throughput
  • Efficient compression
  • Fast processing: Handles large datasets quickly
  • Memory efficient: Minimal memory usage with streaming architecture
  • Production-ready: Handles 100M+ features efficiently

Example:

# GeoJSON to GeoParquet
geoetl-cli convert -i data.geojson -o data.parquet \
  --input-driver GeoJSON --output-driver GeoParquet

# CSV to GeoParquet
geoetl-cli convert -i data.csv -o data.parquet \
  --input-driver CSV --output-driver GeoParquet \
  --geometry-column WKT

# GeoParquet roundtrip
geoetl-cli convert -i input.parquet -o output.parquet \
  --input-driver GeoParquet --output-driver GeoParquet

Learn more:

Planned Drivers (Coming Soon)​

High Priority​

GeoPackage (GPKG)​

Status: 🚧 Planned

Use cases:

  • SQLite-based geospatial database
  • OGC standard format
  • Mobile and offline applications
  • Large datasets

Will support:

  • Multiple layers per file
  • Spatial indexing
  • Attributes and metadata

ESRI Shapefile​

Status: 🚧 Planned

Use cases:

  • Industry standard format
  • GIS software compatibility
  • Legacy data conversion
  • Wide tool support

Will support:

  • .shp, .shx, .dbf, .prj files
  • Attribute data
  • Coordinate systems

FlatGeobuf (FGB)​

Status: 🚧 Planned

Use cases:

  • Streaming data
  • Web mapping
  • Large dataset handling
  • HTTP range requests

Will support:

  • Spatial indexing
  • Cloud-optimized
  • Partial reads

Driver Catalog by Category​

Vector Formats​

Core Formats:

  • ✅ GeoJSON, GeoJSONSeq
  • ✅ CSV (with WKT)
  • ✅ GeoParquet
  • 🚧 ESRI Shapefile
  • 🚧 GeoPackage (GPKG)
  • 🚧 FlatGeobuf
  • 🚧 (Geo)Arrow IPC

Database Formats​

Planned:

  • 🚧 PostgreSQL/PostGIS
  • 🚧 MySQL
  • 🚧 SQLite/Spatialite
  • 🚧 Oracle Spatial
  • 🚧 Microsoft SQL Server
  • 🚧 MongoDB

CAD & Engineering​

Planned:

  • 🚧 AutoCAD DXF
  • 🚧 AutoCAD DWG
  • 🚧 Microstation DGN
  • 🚧 ESRI File Geodatabase

Web Services​

Planned:

  • 🚧 OGC WFS (Web Feature Service)
  • 🚧 OGC API - Features
  • 🚧 Carto
  • 🚧 Elasticsearch
  • 🚧 Google Earth Engine

Using Drivers in Commands​

Basic Syntax​

geoetl-cli convert \
  --input <file> \
  --output <file> \
  --input-driver <DRIVER> \
  --output-driver <DRIVER>

Driver Name Rules​

  1. Case-sensitive: Use exact capitalization

    # ✅ Correct
    --input-driver GeoJSON

    # ❌ Wrong
    --input-driver geojson

  2. Use Short Name: From the drivers table

    # ✅ Correct
    --input-driver CSV

    # ❌ Wrong
    --input-driver "Comma Separated Value (.csv)"

  3. Check availability: Use geoetl-cli drivers to verify

Driver Capabilities​

Checking Read Support​

Before using a driver as input, verify it supports reading:

geoetl-cli drivers | grep -i "shapefile"

Look for "Supported" in the "Read" column.

Checking Write Support​

Before using a driver as output, verify it supports writing:

geoetl-cli drivers | grep -i "geojson"

Look for "Supported" in the "Write" column.

Error Handling​

If you try to use an unsupported operation:

# This will fail because GML doesn't support read yet
geoetl-cli convert -i data.gml -o data.geojson \
  --input-driver GML --output-driver GeoJSON

Error message:

Error: Input driver 'GML' does not support reading.

Geometry Format Support​

Different drivers handle geometries differently:

DriverGeometry FormatExample
GeoJSONNative GeoJSON{"type": "Point", "coordinates": [x, y]}
CSVWKT (Well-Known Text)"POINT(x y)"
GeoParquetWKB (Well-Known Binary)(columnar binary)
ShapefileBinary format(not human-readable)
GeoPackageBinary format(not human-readable)

Future Driver Features​

Coming in future releases:

Phase 2​

  • Driver auto-detection from file extensions
  • More format drivers (10-15 total)
  • Enhanced error messages

Phase 3​

  • Advanced driver options
  • Custom driver plugins
  • Format-specific optimizations

Phase 4​

  • Cloud storage drivers (S3, Azure, GCS)
  • Database connection pooling
  • Streaming data sources

Driver Development​

Want to contribute a driver? See:

Quick Reference​

# List all drivers
geoetl-cli drivers

# Search for specific driver
geoetl-cli drivers | grep -i "parquet"

# Check driver capabilities
geoetl-cli drivers | grep -i "csv"

# Get command help
geoetl-cli convert --help

Next Steps​

Continue learning:

Next: Working with GeoJSON - Web-standard format

Or explore:

Need Help?​