MapInfo Vertical Mapper Grid (NGrid) Reader/Writer

FME Format Type Identifier

NGRID

Reader/Writer

Both

Typical File Extensions

Reading:

  • .grd
  • .grc

Writing:

  • .grd: rasters that do not contain a palette
  • .grc: rasters that contain a palette

NGrid is a binary raster format with header information. For each raster, there is only a single feature returned, since this feature will contain the entire raster. A single feature is stored in a single file, with header information in an associated MapInfo TAB file.

NGrid Product and System Requirements

Format

Product

Operating System

Reader/Writer

FME Desktop License

FME Server

FME Cloud

Windows

Linux

Mac

Reader

Available in all FME editions

Yes

Yes

32-bit: Yes

64-bit: Yes

Yes

Yes

Writer

Available in all FME editions

Yes

Yes

32-bit: Yes

64-bit: Yes

Yes

Yes

Reader Overview

FME considers a single NGRID file to be a dataset. NGRID files are raster files containing elevation data. Each elevation sample in the file is translated to a three-dimensional (3D) coordinate that is stored in a single FME raster feature.

Note: FME does not directly support MapInfo Grid (.tab, .grd) files; however, the NGrid reader can read these files.

Writer Overview

FME will write each raster feature to a folder. FME overwrites any existing data contained in that folder. If the writer receives more than one feature, all the rasters are output to files identified by their ngrid_raster_filename attributes. Header information for each raster is given to the NGrid writer as attributes on each raster feature.

The NGrid writer distinguishes duplicate output files by appending numbers to the filenames.

File Types

The NGrid writer outputs different file types depending on whether or not the raster contains a palette:

  • .grd: rasters that do not contain a palette
  • .grc: rasters that contain a palette

FME Raster Features

FME raster features represent raster data and use several concepts that are unlike those used in the handling of vector data. The topics below describe how FME processes raster data.

About FME Rasters Tiling and Mosaicking
Raster Properties Band Combining and Separating
Band Properties Band and Palette Selection
Palette Properties Raster Processing
Compression Raster versus Vector Features
Pyramiding Raster File Naming
Interleaving World Files
Interpretation and Data Type TAB Files
Palette Resolution  

NGrid supports rasters with either a single Real32 band, or a single UInt8 or UInt16 band which has an RGB24 and/or String palette.

FME Community

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