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Help & guidance Instructions for Depositors

Data requirements table

This table below lists all file types ADS will accept by data type. Where available a downloadable metadata template is included for the submission of required metadata.

Data Type

Preferred File Format

Accepted File Format

Metadata Template

3D Models, Visualisation and Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality Modelling Language.vrml

Wavefront OBJ File (ascii) .obj (+ .mtl + jpg textures) 3D models from laser scanning or photogrammetry should be archived along with the original scan or image datasets (see sections below).

Adobe Portable Document Format (3D).pdf. This is accepted for dissemination purposes only, it is not suitable for preservation of 3D data.

STL (ascii) .stl

Microsoft Excel (.xls)

Open Office spreadsheet

 

Audio

Broadcast Wave Format .bwf

Waveform Audio .wav using LPCM codec

Advanced Audio Coding .aac

Audio Interchange File .aif

Flac .flac

MP3 .mp3

Speex .ogg

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

 

Binary and Plain Text (Documents)

Microsoft Word .docx or .doc

OpenDocument Text .odt

Plain text .txt

Portable Document Format .pdf

Rich Text Format .rtf

Text encoding, DTD or schema .xml, .sgml, .html, .xhtml

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Completed example PDF

CAD and Vector graphics

AutoCAD Drawing (2018 or later) .dwg

Drawing Interchange Format (2018 or later) .dxf

Scalable Vector Graphics .svg

AutoCAD Drawing (2017 or earlier) .dwg

Drawing Interchange Format (2017 or earlier) .dxf

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Completed example PDF

Databases

Comma-separated values .csv Dbase .dbf

Delimited text .txt

Exchange formats .json/.xml/.rdf

Microsoft Access .mdb or .accdb

Microsoft Excel.xls or .xlsx

Structured Query Language Data .sql

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Completed example PDF

Geophysics

Geophysical survey datasets should include:

(1) Raw data in text/XYZ format .txt, .csv, SEG-Y (.segy)

(2) Processed data in its native format (optional)

(3) Raster plots .tif + .tfw world file or GeoTIFF

Raw data files should be clearly described (structure, values, etc.) in accompanying documentation.

Raw contour data .dat .rep

Rendered images .png + .pgw world file

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Completed example PDF

GIS (General)

ESRI Shapefile .shp (+ .shx + .dbf and other associated files)

Geography Markup Language .gml

ArcInfo Interchange .e00

MapInfo Interchange Format .mif + .mid

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Completed example PDF

GIS (Geodatabases)

None Delimited text and ESRI Shapefile .csv + .shp

GeoJSON .geojson

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Completed example PDF

GIS (Raster)

Geo-referenced TIF Image .tif + .tfw world file, or GeoTIFF ERDAS Imagine files .img (+ .rrd, aux.xml, img.xml)

ESRI GRID ascii .asc/.grd

ESRI GRID binary .adf

JPG World .jpg + .jpw (.rrd, .aux, .xml)

Keyhole Markup Language .kml

PNG World .png + .pgw (.rrd,.aux,.xml)

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Completed example PDF

Harris Matrices

BASP, Stratify, and ArchEd exports .lst

Delimited Text .txt

Comma Separated Values .csv

Microsoft Excel .xlsx or .xls Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Digital photography and Raster Images

Joint Photographic Expert Group .jpeg/.jpg

Baseline TIFF v.6 (uncompressed, single-page) .tiff/.tif

Adobe Digital Negative .dng

Adobe Portable Document Format .pdf

Bit-Mapped Graphics Format .bmp

Graphics Interchange Format .gif

Portable Network Graphics .png

JPEG2000 .jp2/.jpx

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Completed example PDF

Laser Scanning

ASCII Text File .txt

E57 Point Cloud Format .e57

Laser scanning datasets should ideally include both raw scans and registered datasets.

Cyclone ASCII Export .pts Microsoft Excel (.xls)

Open Office spreadsheet

 

LIDAR and Satellite Imagery

ASPRS Lidar Data Exchange Format .las

ASCII Text File .txt

GeoTIFF .tif

None Depositors wishing to deposit LIDAR must contact us for information on appropriate formats and metadata.

Linked Data formats

Linked Data is a growing part of the internet where data is published online and then linked to other published data in much the same way that web pages are interlinked using hypertext. The term Linked Data is used to describe a method of exposing, sharing, and connecting data via URIs on the Web. The ADS cannot give advice or support on using RDF, SPARQL or SPARQL Endpoints.

Depositors wishing to deposit Linked Data formats must contact us for information on appropriate formats and metadata.

To view an archive that used linked data (Triples in this case), please see: ArchAIDE consortium (2019) ARCHAIDE Portal for Publications and Outputs [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service [distributor] https://doi.org/10.5284/1050896.

Markup Language

A markup language is a human readable computer language (e.g., HTML, XML) that uses tags to define elements. In XHTML, for example, you’ll have various body (body), paragraphs (p), hyperlinks (a), etc., tags which help create the layout of webpages (or documents in other languages).

Depositors wishing to deposit Markup Language must contact us for information on appropriate formats and metadata.

Medical Imaging

DICOM files .dcm, off-line media

Joint Photographic Expert Group .jpeg/.jpg

Uncompressed Baseline TIFF v.6 .tiff/.tif

None Depositors wishing to deposit Medical Imaging must contact us for information on appropriate formats and metadata.

Photogrammetry

Virtual Reality Modelling Language .vrml

Wavefront OBJ File (ascii) .obj (+ .mtl + jpg textures)

3D models from photogrammetry should be deposited with their source images. Raster images .jpg, .tif or .dng

Adobe Portable Document Format (3D) .pdf

This is accepted as an additional dissemination format, it is not suitable for preservation of 3D data.

Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

Where possible, software-generated processing reports should be deposited alongside the data.

Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM) and Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI)

Raster Images .jpg, .tif, or .dng

Reflectance Transformation Imaging .RTI or .PTM (+ XML + XMP + LP files)

None Depositors wishing to deposit PTM and RTI must contact us for further advice on appropriate metadata.

Scientific Data

Scientific data is a broad category for data derived from archaeological science (archaeometry) and related fields, e.g. bioarchaeology, lithic studies, environmental studies. This data can include ICP, XRF, radiocarbon, dendrochronology, OSL, isotope analysis, mathematical models, and others.

Depositors wishing to deposit Scientific Data must contact us for information on appropriate formats and metadata.

Spreadsheets

Comma Separated Values .csv

Microsoft Excel .xlsx or .xlsx

OpenOffice Calc 2.0 .ods

Delimited text .txt Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv

Completed example PDF

Video and Moving Images

Matroska (FFV1 + LPCM/FLAC codecs) .mkv

MPEG1 .mpeg/.mpg

MPEG2 .mpeg/.mpg

MPEG4 .mp4

None Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Open Office spreadsheet

csv