All editions of Map Suite come with support for the most popular GIS file formats baked right in; these are the natively-supported formats. In general, a natively-supported format will enjoy better performance and API friendliness than those that are supposed through extensions.

Vector data allows you to style and display your data exactly how you want it. If the data format you are looking for is not listed below you can easily integrate your own custom data format.

Raster data is typically aerial imagery, satellite imagery and topo maps. However you can use almost any image as a raster layer and add it to the map. For example you may have a jpeg that represents a floor plan of a building that you would like to display on a map.

Web based map data comes in a variety of forms. Several of the providers below are tile based web services that allow you to easily integrate rich basemaps into your application. Other technologies such as WMS and WFS provide a common way for web applications to consume maps and feature information over the web. Finally the NOAA web data layers allow you to integrate near real time weather information into your application using Map Suite.