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CoastWatch products are available in a variety of data formats. Several criteria are used in the selection of a data format:

  • Filesize (compression)
  • Public acceptance
  • Information retention
  • etc.

The following table describes the data formats in use on the CoastWatch homepage and FTP servers. Some of the formats are reserved for special requests and are not routinely produced.

Format: Product: Primary Use Typical Size
Hierchical Data Format: CW Implementation
(CW HDF)		 MODIS OC
POES SST
GOES SST
QuikSCAT Winds		 Scientific Analysis 50 - 100 MB
GeoTIFF ALL GIS/Graphics 12 - 190 KB
0.2 - 1.3 MB
GIF/PNG ALL Graphics
Web Browser		 200 - 900 KB
Binary Raster
(FLT,HDR)		 MODIS OC
POES SST
GOES SST
QuikSCAT Winds		 Scientific Modeling
GIS		 9 - 12 MB
Binary
(RAW)		 GOES SST Image Processing
GIS		 104 - 464 KB
ESRI Shapefile
(SHP,SHX,DBF)		 QuikSCAT Winds Scientific Analysis
GIS		 15 - 5000 KB
 
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