Surfer supports many different file formats. Below are lists of all supported file formats grouped by type. If you don't see one you need, please submit a support request.
For more information, please also see the Surfer Help for File Formats.
Data Types (vector, image, data)
| DATA TYPES | IMPORT | EXPORT |
| 000 IHO S-57 Navigation Chart | X | |
| ACCDB Access Database | X | |
| AN? ACR-NEMA Medical Image | X | |
| BLN Golden Software Blanking | X | X |
| BMP Windows Bitmap | X | X |
| BNA Atlas Boundary | X | X |
| CSV Comma Separated Variables | X | X |
| DAT Data | X | X |
| DBF Database | X | X |
| DICOM3 Medical Image | X | |
| DDF SDTS TVP | X | |
| DGN MicroStation ISSF DGN v1-v7 | X | |
| DLG USGS Digital Line Graph | X | |
| DWG AutoCAD Drawing | X |
X |
| DXF AutoCAD Drawing Interchange Format | X | X |
| E00 ESRI ArcInfo Export Format | X | |
| ECW ERMapper | X | |
| EMF Windows Enhanced Metafile | X | X |
| EPS Encapsulated Postscript | X | |
| FGDB ESRI File Geodatabase | X | |
| GIF Image | X | X |
| GML Geography Markup Language | X | |
| GPX GPS Exchange Format | X | X |
| GSB Golden Software Boundary | X | X |
| GSI Golden Software Interchange | X | X |
| HTML Image Map | X | |
| IMG ERDAS Imagine | X | |
| JPEG Compressed Bitmap | X | X |
| JPEG-2000 Bitmap | X | X |
| JSON GeoJSON Vector Map | X | |
| KML Google Earth KML | X | X |
| KMZ Google Earth KMZ | X | X |
| LAS LiDAR Data | X | X |
| LAZ LiDAR Data | X | X |
| MDB Access 97-2003 Database | X | |
| MDB ESRI Personal Database | X | |
| MID MapInfo Attributes | X | |
| MIF MapInfo Interchange Format | X | X |
| PDF Portable Document (raster and vector) | X | X |
| PDF Portable Document (GeoPDF) | X | X |
| PDF 3D Portable Document (3D PDF) | X | |
| PLT Golden Software PlotCall | X | |
| PLY Stanford PLY | X | |
| PNG Portable Network Graphics | X | X |
| PNM/PPM/PGM/PBM Image | X | |
| PNM Image | X | X |
| RGB SGI-RGB Image | X | X |
| RT? US Census TIGER/Line | X | |
| S-57 IHO S-57 Navigation Chart | X | |
| SEG-P1 Exchange Format | X | X |
| SHP ESRI Shapefile | X | X |
| SID LizardTech MrSID Image | X | |
| SLK Sylk Spreadsheet | X | X |
| STL STereoLithograph 3D Mesh | X | X |
| SUN Sun Raster Image | X | X |
| SVG Scalable Vector Graphics | X | |
| TAB MapInfo Table TAB/MAP vector format | X | |
| TGA Targa (TrueVision) | X | X |
| TIF Image | X | X |
| TIF Image GeoTIFF | X | X |
| TXT Text Data | X | X |
| XLS Excel Spreadsheet | X | X |
| XLSX Excel 2007 Spreadsheet | X | X |
| XLSM Excel 2007 Spreadsheet | X | |
| VCT IDRISI VCT Binary Vector | X | |
| WMF Windows Metafile | X | X |
| WRL VRML 3D Vector Model | X | |
| X-IMG AVS X-Image | X | X |
Grid Types
| GRID TYPES | IMPORT | EXPORT |
| ADF Arc/Info Binary Grid | X | X |
| AM Amira Mesh | X | X |
| AN? ACR-NEMA Medical Image | X | |
| ASC Arc/Info ASCII Grid | X | X |
| ASI Amira Stacked Images | X | |
| BIL/BIP/BSQ Banded Grid | X | X |
| BMP Windows Bitmap | X | |
| CPS-3 Grid Format | X | X |
| DAT XYZ data | X | |
| DICOM2 Medical Image | X | |
| DDF SDTS DEM | X | |
| DEM USGS DEM | X | X |
| DOS ETOPO-5 | X | |
| DTD DTED | X | |
| E00 ESRI ArcInfo Export Format | X | |
| ECW ERMapper | X | |
| ERS ERMapper Grid Format | X | X |
| FLD AVS Field | X | X |
| FLT ESRI Float Grid Format | X | X |
| GIF Image | X | |
| GLOBE DEM | X | |
| GRD Surfer 6 Text Grid | X | X |
| GRD Surfer 6 Binary Grid | X | X |
| GRD Surfer 7 Binary Grid | X | X |
| GRD Geosoft Binary Grid | X | X |
| GRIB Edition 1 Grid Format | X | |
| GXF Grid eXchange Format | X | X |
| HDF Hierarchical Data Format | X | X |
| HGT SRTM Elevation Data | X | |
| HDR GTOPO-30 | X | |
| IMG Analyze 7.5 Medical Image | X | X |
| IMG ERDAS Imagine | X | |
| IMG IDRISI Raster Format | X | |
| INFO Leica Confocal Raw Slices | X | |
| JPG Compressed Bitmap | X | |
| JPEG-2000 Bitmap | X | |
| LAT Iris Explorer | X | X |
| netCDF Network Common Data Form | X | X |
| PDF Raster | X | |
| PNG Portable Network Graphics | X | |
| PNM/PPM/PGM/PBM Image | X | |
| RAW Raw Binary Grid | X | X |
| RGB SGI-RGB Image | X | |
| SID LizardTech MrSID Image | X | |
| STK Metamorph | X | |
| SUN Sun Raster Image | X | |
| TGA Targa (TrueVision) | X | |
| TIF Image as Grid GeoTIFF | X | X |
| TXT Formatted Text Grid | X | |
| VTK Visualization Toolkit | X | X |
| X AVS X-Image | X | |
| Z-MAP Plus Grid Format | X | X |
3D Grid Types
| 3D GRID TYPES | IMPORT | EXPORT |
| DAT XYZC data | X | |
| HDF Hierarchical Data Format | X | X |
| VTK Visualization Toolkit | X | X |
Updated April 2025
Comments
I don't see GeoPackage files (GPKG) on the list. Perhaps I missed it?
I'm increasingly getting GIS people sending me stuff (especially vector data) as GPKG rather than Shapefiles (and I don't blame them, given it's a single file, rather than an entire directory!).
Can you point me how to import this? Perhaps there's a good converter somewhere.
Hi Nicholas.
Thanks for your comment. At this time, GPKG is not supported in Surfer for import or export. I've added a vote to our suggestion file to support this format for both in a future version of the software. It's a great suggestion - this format does seem much easier to use than something like SHP when sharing data.
We haven't tested any converter tools online for accuracy or stability, but it does appear that a few tools exist and may be worth exploring.
Best,
Gregory McCotter
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