File Geodatabase (FGDB)

For customers using Esri software to manage geospatial data, NAVTEQ offers the NAVTEQ Map in Esri's File Geodatabase (FGDB) format.

File Geodatabase is the new single-user geodatabase format from Esri and the new standard format for the NAVTEQ Map. FGDB is an alternative to NAVSTREETS Shapefile UTF8 and is designed with a different extension (.gdb). The format stores a geodatabase in a folder of files and supports the following main use cases of the NAVTEQ Map:

  • Map Display
  • Routing/Route Optimization
  • Geocoding/Destination Selection
  • Positioning and tracking
  • Guidance

The FGDB format offers structural, performance, and data management advantages over Shapefiles. The format provides improved versatility and usability, optimized performance, few size limitations, easy data migration, and allows the use of data compression.

Currently, FGDB provides worldwide coverage for all regions with the following delivery:

  • Country level for Mexico, Brazil, and the United States
  • Continental level for Europe and North America
  • State level (US only) for California, Illinois, Florida, and Texas

Some benefits of using FGDB as well as comparison with NAVSTREETS ArcView/ Shapefiles:

  NAVSTREETS
ArcView / Shapefile (.shp)		 NAVTEQ
Map FGDB (.gdb)
Size/Portability • Limited, 2GB
• Need for geographic tiling
• Limited inclusion of new content		 • 2 TB (1TB dataset/table)
• Full inclusion of countries, continents and new content
Performance • Not ideal for compression and not very responsive
• Data is disk space consuming		 • Data compression without reducing performance
• Takes up less disk space
Data
Management		 • Complex structure
• Need to manage multiple files for larger data sets		 • Easy to use system folder
• Files can be viewed easily
• Contains routing tables
Versatility • Limited possibilities for representing non-Latin characters • Full Unicode support (non-latin characters)
Forward Compatibility • Older format is waning in use
• Limited update support from Esri		 • Latest Esri format
• Full support from Esri