2. Creating Vector Layers

• Processing time: Even when your files are small, it may still take 3 to 10 minutes for them to be processed into an active Layer. On Ellipsis Drive there are many users queueing up tasks simultaneously. The system cycles through all of these tasks to get to yours. When the queue growths past a certain length, extra hardware is allocated to work through the queue faster. Because the system allocates hardware dynamically based on the work load detected, you'll find that when processing are large volume of data into an active Layer, the waiting time per MB/GB is much shorter.

• Background process: Uploading and processing files is a process that runs in the background. Feel free to minimise the tab and work on other things while you wait. Once your files are fully uploaded and the processing stage has started, you can even close the tab entirely.

More about Paths and Layers

Any item in Ellipsis Drive is referred to as a path. A path can be a folder, a file or a layer. Folders and files are similar to what you are used to in a regular file system. Layers within Ellipsis Drive are the holders of spatial data. These layers can be of type vector, raster and point cloud.

Term	Definition
Vector Layer	A layer created for hosting vector data
Raster Layer	A layer created for hosting raster data
Point cloud Layer	A layer created for hosting point cloud data

Every Layer you create is a fully interoperable web-map that is ready for high performance use by any audience you authorise.

• You can add any number of vector data files to a Vector Layer. So feel free to drop in (way) more then just one!.

• There is no limit to the size of your Layer. So feel free to make it 25 TB or even more.

• Within a Layer, you can define one or more timestamps. Very useful when your data is part of a time series!

• It's best to define Layers as logical units of data. So, if you have a .gdb or .gpkg with (for example) data on streets, points of interest and buildings in it, it's best to pull it apart and upload the streets, points of interest and buildings data to three separate layers. That makes your data management more much flexible, modular and scalable 💪

• You can uplaod the following formats to a Vector Layer: 'kml', 'geojson', 'csv', 'shape', 'gpkg', 'gml', 'gdb', 'fgb', 'zip' and 'dxf'

💡 When uploading a .csv, the file needs to include an 'x' and 'y' (and an optional 'z') column for longitude, latitude, and (optionally) height respectively.

💡 When uploading a Shape file, you need to drop in the full zip (not just the file with '.shp' extension).

To learn more about your options when working with Vector Layers, also take a look at the articles under Working With Vector Data