Standardisation
GDF is an international standard that is used to model, describe and transfer road networks and other geographic data.
The standard was initially drawn up by CEN in co-operation with digital map providers, automotive and electronic equipment manufacturers. The outcome of these standardisation efforts (CEN GDF 3.0, or ENV14825:1996) has formed the major input to a global standard created by ISO/TC204 Sub Working group 3:
- ISO GDF 4.0, formally referred to ISO14825:2004, now replaced by
- ISO GDF 5.0, formally referred to ISO14825:2011.
However, despite the existence of a ISO GDF standard, the nature of model abstractions as well as semantic interpretations and proprietary content extensions lead to interoperability issues between flavors of GDF map products from different vendors. In practice the GDF files are not fully interchangeable due to vendor specific extensions. To this end, GDF5.0 provides major improvements in terms of extended meta data and flags for signalling implementation choices.
Read more about this topic: Geographic Data Files