Closed To Open Sourve GIS : First Steps In Reverse Engineering ESRI's Layer Defintion File Format

Abstract: Visualization of digital geographic data is often accomplished through custom symbology that is saved in a proprietary format called a layer file (.lyr). The sharing of free geographical information system (GIS) data can be limited as the symbology data is bound inthe .lyr file format. This makes it harder and more tedious to work with open software tools since it is not possible to convert or open the .lyr file in free and open GIS software and thus limits the distribution of free GIS data. The aim of this thesis is to increase the interoperability of .lyr data between proprietary and free and open GIS software. This was done by revers eengineering the .lyr file format to document the file structure and to distribute the knowledge and metadata gained from this project to the open source community. Reverse engineering the.lyr format provided a well needed metadata and documentation about the format which increases the interoperability and enable future work to continue to lessen the gap between open source and commercial software. This groundwork can therefore, enable a continued development of data interoperability between proprietary and free and open GIS software.