Supported data formats

Every feed and data source type in ArcGIS Velocity supports either an inherent data format or a variety of formats. When configuring input data, Velocity automatically samples messages or records and attempts to identify the data format.

The following data formats are supported in Velocity:

  • Delimited
  • JSON
  • GeoJSON
  • Esri JSON
  • XML
  • RSS
  • GeoRSS
  • Shapefile
  • Parquet

Delimited

Delimited data is supported for most feed and data source types. When using delimited data, you can specify the field separator and whether a header row exists.

Take note of the fields and field types derived by Velocity when delimited data is sampled. Delimited data is not strongly typed, meaning that field and attribute types are not specified explicitly in the data. For example, a small sample set may not reveal that a particular field should be Int64 instead of Int32.

Additionally, changing fields from a float type (Float32 or Float64) to an integer type (Int32 or Int64) is not recommended. Changing field types is not intended for on-the-fly conversion of numerical values. For delimited data, downgrading from a float to an integer can cause the value to be skipped. To convert or transform numerical values, use the Calculate Field or Map Fields tool in an analytic.

JSON

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a popular and lightweight data interchange format. JSON data is supported in most feed and data source types. When JSON data is used, you can specify a root node containing the array of messages, whether the data has lines, and whether to flatten a JSON structure with multiple levels or exempt certain fields for flattening.

For more information, see JSON, which includes detailed JSON samples and configuration parameter examples.

Esri JSON

Esri JSON (also referred to as a featureSet object) can be ingested by Velocity as either a featureSet object (a collection of features) or individual features separated by lines in a file. In either configuration, the Esri JSON data ingested should have a specific geometry type, fields, and a spatial reference. Esri JSON data is supported for most feed and data source types. When using Esri JSON data, you can specify whether the data has lines.

For more information, see Esri JSON, which includes Esri JSON samples and configuration parameter examples.

GeoJSON

GeoJSON is a format for encoding a variety of geographic data structures. GeoJSON data is supported in most feed and data source types. When using GeoJSON data, you can specify whether the data has lines.

For more information, see GeoJSON, which includes GeoJSON samples and configuration parameter examples.

XML

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a widely used data format for both tabular and geographic data. XML data is supported in most feed and data source types in Velocity. When using XML data, you can specify a root element as well as whether to flatten an XML structure with multiple levels or exempt certain elements for flattening.

For more information, see XML, which includes XML samples and configuration parameter examples.

RSS

The RSS data format is supported specifically in the RSS feed and data source types in Velocity.

Velocity supports RSS in either ATOM or RSS 2.0 formats.

GeoRSS

The GeoRSS data format is supported specifically for RSS feed and data source types in Velocity. GeoRSS is a data format used for live web feeds that include geographic features and locations.

Velocity supports OGC Community Standard for GeoRSS for encoding GeoRSS-Simple and GML.

Shapefile

The shapefile data format is supported for the Amazon S3 and Azure Blob Storage data source types only.

A shapefile is an Esri vector data storage format for storing the location, shape, and attributes of geographic features. It is stored as a set of related files and contains one feature class. Shapefiles often contain large features with a large amount of associated data and historically are used in GIS desktop applications such as ArcGIS Desktop.

The path specified in an Amazon S3 or Azure Blob Storage data source must include at least the .shp, .shx, .dbf, and .prj file components of the shapefile.

Velocity does not support shapefiles in .zip files.

Parquet

The Parquet data format is supported for the Amazon S3, Azure Blob Store, and Feature Layer (archive) data source types only.

A Parquet file is an open-source columnar-oriented data storage format from Apache. For more information, see the Apache Parquet website.