Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your ERS file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert ERS to another file type
To convert ERS header files to another format, you need ERDAS IMAGINE or other GIS software.
Convert a file to ERS
To convert other file formats to the "Raster Dataset Header" file type, you need software like ERDAS IMAGINE or a similar tool.
About ERS files
The .ERS file extension typically identifies an ER Mapper Header, a legacy GIS format originally developed by Earth Resource Mapping (now part of Hexagon). These ASCII text files serve as the metadata 'brain' for a raster dataset, defining critical properties like coordinate systems (datum and projection), cell size, and band information. However, users often encounter a major catch: the .ERS file is effectively useless on its own. It acts as a pointer to a separate, often extension-less raw binary data file that must exist in the same directory. Without that binary counterpart, the .ERS file is just a small text file containing technical specs, not an image you can view. Furthermore, this format is increasingly obsolete, replaced by self-contained formats like GeoTIFF or ECW. Opening these files natively requires specialized, expensive software like ERDAS IMAGINE or the command-line utility GDAL. For practical use, archiving, or sharing with clients who lack geospatial software, the best workflow is converting the dataset to GeoTIFF (.TIF) for maintaining georeferencing, JPEG for lightweight web previews, or PDF for documentation.
Convert.Guru analyzes your ERS file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert ERS file to SHP, KML, KMZ, GPX, GEOJSON, TOPOJSON, TIF, TIFF, ECW, SID, IMG or DEM, you can use ERDAS IMAGINE or similar software from the "Geospatial Raster Header" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert LAZ, KMZ, DTM, CSV, DEM, PRJ, LAS, GPX, DSM, SHP, DBF or KML files to ERS, try ERDAS IMAGINE or another comparable tool in the "Geospatial Raster Header" category.
The ERS Converter Story
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our ERS converter.