# VFK - Czech Cadastral Exchange Data Format

Driver short name

VFK

Build dependencies

libsqlite3

This driver reads VFK files, i.e. data in the Czech cadastral exchange data format. The VFK file is recognized as an datasource with multiple layers.

The driver is compiled only if GDAL is built with SQLite support.

Points are represented as wkbPoints, lines and boundaries as wkbLineStrings and areas as wkbPolygons. wkbMulti* features are not used. Feature types cannot be mixed in one layer.

## Driver capabilities

Supports Georeferencing

This driver supports georeferencing

Supports VirtualIO

This driver supports virtual I/O operations (/vsimem/, etc.)

## Open options

Open options can be specified in command-line tools using the syntax `-oo <NAME>=<VALUE>` or by providing the appropriate arguments to `GDALOpenEx()` (C) or `gdal.OpenEx` (Python). Starting with GDAL 2.3, the following open options can be specified:

- SUPPRESS_GEOMETRY=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to `NO`. Setting it to YES will skip resolving geometry. All layers will be recognized with no geometry type. Mostly useful when user is interested at attributes only. Note that suppressing geometry can cause significant performance gain when reading input VFK data by the driver.

- FILE_FIELD=[YES​/​NO]: Defaults to `NO`. Setting it to YES will append new field VFK_FILENAME containing name of source VFK file to all layers.

## Configuration options

Configuration options can be specified in command-line tools using the syntax `--config <NAME>=<VALUE>` or using functions such as `CPLSetConfigOption()` (C) or `gdal.config_options` (Python). The following configuration options are available:

- OGR_VFK_DB_NAME=value: Determine the name of the SQLite backend database used when reading VFK data. By default, SQLite database is created in a directory of input VFK file (with file extension '.db').

- OGR_VFK_DB_OVERWRITE=[YES​/​NO]: Determines whether the driver should overwrite an existing SQLite database and stores data read from input VFK file into newly created DB.

- OGR_VFK_DB_DELETE=[YES​/​NO]: Determines whether the driver should delete the backend SQLite database when closing the datasource.

- OGR_VFK_DB_SPATIAL=[YES​/​NO]: Determines whether the driver should store resolved geometries in the backend SQLite database. If `YES`, geometries are resolved only once when building SQLite database from VFK data. Geometries are stored in WKB format. Note that GDAL doesn't need to be built with SpatiaLite support. If `NO`, geometries are not stored in the DB and are resolved when reading data from DB on the fly.

- OGR_VFK_DB_READ_ALL_BLOCKS=[YES​/​NO]: Determines whether all data blocks should be read, or only the data blocks requested by the used.

- OGR_VFK_DB_READ=[YES​/​NO]: If `YES`, opening a VFK backend SQLite database will cause the VFK driver to be used instead of the SQLite driver.

### Internal working and performance tweaking

If backend SQLite database already exists then the driver reads features directly from the database and not from input VFK file given as an input datasource. This causes significant performance gain when reading features by the driver.

The driver reads by default all data blocks from VFK file when building backend SQLite database. When configuration option `OGR_VFK_DB_READ_ALL_BLOCKS` =NO is given, the driver reads only data blocks which are requested by the user. This can be useful when the user want to process only part of VFK data.

### Examples

Data related to a single cadastral area is typically distributed in multiple VFK files. Example below is based on sample VFK files provided by the Czech State Administration of Land Surveying and Cadastre. In order to process all VFK files related to a single cadastral area (in example below with ID 602515), the configuration option `OGR_VFK_DB_NAME` has to be defined.

>     # load first file mapa/602515.vfk
>     ogrinfo --config OGR_VFK_DB_NAME 602515.db mapa/602515.vfk
>     # load second file spi_s_jpv/602515.vfk
>     ogrinfo --config OGR_VFK_DB_NAME 602515.db spi_s_jpv/602515.vfk
>     # now we can access eg. geometry of parcels
>     ogrinfo 602515.db PAR -fid 1
>     ...

## Datasource name

Datasource name is a full path to the VFK file.

The driver supports reading files managed by VSI Virtual File System API, which include "regular" files, as well as files in the /vsizip/, /vsigzip/, and /vsicurl/ read-only domains.

Since GDAL 2.2 also a full path to the backend SQLite database can be used as an datasource. By default, such datasource is read by SQLite driver. If configuration option `OGR_VFK_DB_READ` =YES is given, such datasource is opened by VFK driver instead.

## Layer names

VFK data blocks are used as layer names.

## Filters

### Attribute filter

An internal SQL engine is used to evaluate the expression. Evaluation is done once when the attribute filter is set.

### Spatial filter

Bounding boxes of features stored in topology structure are used to evaluate if a features matches current spatial filter. Evaluation is done once when the spatial filter is set.

## References

- OGR VFK Driver Implementation Issues

- Czech cadastral exchange data format documentation (in Czech)