What is the GeoBase File System (GBFS)?
The GeoBase file system (or GBFS) is a methodology of storing spatial data for optimal performance in geospatial or location-based applications. GBFS takes 3rd party spatial data sets – such as street data, building outlines, POIs – and compresses the information through a bit-encoding process. This process is lossless – meaning the resulting data set retains all of the information in the source data. For the US & Canada, the source SHP files are ~20 GB in size; the GeoBase compile process yields a 1.8GB file that retains all contained data. GBFS also includes spatial indexes so that the data sets can be quickly searched by mapping engines, geocoders and general spatial queries.
