SAMM
User Manual
90
9.4.1 File Type
SAMM supports export to GeoTIFF, Tiled GeoTIFF(s) (*.tif or *.tiff) and Google Earth (*.kmz)
formats. Tagged-Image File Format (TIFF) files are a raster imagery file type. Rasters, as
mentioned in Section 5.2, store data in a grid of pixels. GeoTIFFs are TIFFs with geographic
tags embedded in the file, so the data (image that you see) and metadata (location information
that allow placing the file on a map) are encoded in the same file. The format is an industry
standard, and GeoTIFFs created in SAMM can be read in any program that reads GeoTIFFs as
well as regular TIFFs (in most circumstances).
When exporting to Tiled GeoTIFFs, SAMM subdivides exported areas into smaller areas (2,048
x 2,048 pixels), referred to as tiles. Tiles are useful when working with survey data that will
result in excessively large file sizes (due to survey size and/or high resolution exports) when
exported to GeoTIFFs. Tiles that do not have any survey data within them will automatically not
be exported, which helps to reduce the overall file size associated with the export as well as the
time required to process an export. Figure 73 provides an example of the advantage of using
tiles.
Figure 73. Single GeoTIFF export vs Tiled GeoTIFFs export
GoogleEarth files are
the native file type for
Google's mapping
program. SAMM's
*.kmz export can be
added to a
GoogleEarth map for
further analysis or
creating maps for
reports (Figure 74).
Figure 74. Exported data
displayed in GoogleEarth
