| Word | Description |
| .TAB | MapInfo header file - this can reference image, grid, raster image, vector or tabular (native .DAT or non-native formats such as .XLS, .TXT, .CSV) files |
| ASCII | American Standard Code for Information Interchange - character encoding using the English alphabet |
| ASL | Above Sea Level |
| contour | A polyline connecting points of a constant value such as height or soil geochemical values; generally displayed in a contour map. |
| CSV | Comma Separated Values - a file format for storing tabular data |
| DEM | Digital Elevation Model: a gridded surface of height values |
| DTB | Depth To Basement: often presented as a continuous grid surface of cell values, each cell value representing the interpolated depth to basement at that point. Typically this grid has been interpolated from drillhole information. |
| DTM | Digital Terrain Model: a gridded surface of height values |
| DXF | Drawing Exchange Format |
| ECW | Enhanced Compression Wavelet- an image compression format developed by Earth Resource Mapping. The file format is optimized for aerial and satellite imagery, and efficiently compresses very large images with fine, alternating contrast. This is a lossy compression format. |
| ELC | Enhanced Layer Control- Discover's dynamic layer control system, accessed via the Discover>Show Enhanced Layer Control menu option. |
| grid surface | A continuous surface of cell values created by interpolating a vector dataset using a gridding algorithm such as Inverse Distance Weighting, Traingulation, etc. Created with the Discover>Surfaces>Create Grid tool |
| image | A continuous rectangular grid of pixels or cells, with each pixel having an individually defined colour (rather than a data value as cells in a grid surface do) |
| RAM | Random Access Memory (RAM) or computer memory |
| raster image | A continuous rectangular grid of pixels or cells, with each pixel having an individually defined colour (rather than a data value as cells in a grid surface do) |
| RL | Relative Level |
| SRTM | Shuttle Radar Topography Mission |
| surface | A continuous surface of cell values created by interpolating a vector dataset using a gridding algorithm such as Inverse Distance Weighting, Traingulation, etc. Created with the Discover>Surfaces>Create Grid tool |
| txt | Text file format, typically using ASCII or Unicode character sets |
| XLS | Excel data format |
| XML | Extensible Markup Language |