An Overview of FIPS 173, The Spatial Data Transfer Standard

The Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS), after nine years of development, was approved on July 29, 1992, as FIPS Publication 173. The SDTS consists of three distinct parts. Part 1 is concerned with logical specifications required for spatial data transfer and has three major components: a conceptual model of spatial data, data quality report specifications, and detailed logical transfer format specifications for SDTS data sets. Part 2 provides a model for the definition of real-world spatial features, attributes, and attribute values and includes a standard but working and expandable list with definitions. Part 3 specifies the byte-level format implementation of the logical specifications in SDTS Part 1 using ISO/ANSI 8211 (FIPS 123), a general data exchange standard.