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MilX File Format — map.army Exchange Format Guide
map.army uses MilX (Military Exchange Format) as its native file format for saving, sharing, and importing military situations. This page is an orientation reference: what the format is, what files belong to it, and how to obtain the full specification.
What MilX is
MilX is an XML-based exchange format that carries MIL-STD-2525 military symbology and tactical graphics between systems. It is maintained by gs-soft AG alongside the MSS (Military Symbol Service) and is the same format used by industry partners, command and control systems, and military simulation applications that exchange situational data with map.army .
Conceptually, a MilX document contains:
- Layers — named, ordered containers for symbols and tactical graphics.
- Symbols — placements with a MIL-STD-2525 symbol identifier, position, affiliation, status, and the relevant modifiers.
- Tactical graphics — multi-point shapes (lines, areas, range rings, etc.) with their geometry and modifiers.
- Metadata — creator, timestamps, coordinate system, optional MilX version.
Compatibility with MIL-STD-2525 / JC3IEDM is a design constraint: anything that is not expressible in the standard is also not carried by MilX.
File extensions
| Extension | Description |
|---|---|
.milxly | Uncompressed MilX layer file. Plain XML; human-readable, easily diff-able, large. |
.milxlyz | Zip-compressed MilX layer file. The default output of Save Layers in
map.army
; the same XML inside a .zip container. Recommended for sharing. |
Both extensions carry the same payload; the compressed form is the default for exchange because typical situation maps with many symbols compress aggressively.
Known constraints
A few practical constraints worth knowing when generating or editing MilX outside the app:
- Symbol identifier length. MIL-STD-2525 symbol identifiers are fixed at 15 characters. MilX validates the length on import; identifiers shorter or longer than 15 characters cause the affected feature to be rejected.
- Image and vector layers are not embedded. When
map.army
saves a
.milxlyz, image overlays and online-source vector layers are not serialised into the file. Only MilX symbology travels with the export. (See Import Overlays for the image-overlay sidecar mechanism.) - Coordinate system. The default coordinate system in MilX exports is WGS84. The “MilX-Layer Advanced Settings” option in Options → General lets you convert to a different coordinate system or to an older MilX version before download.
Obtaining the full schema
The complete MilX schema and validation rules are not published on this documentation site. If you are integrating MilX into your own software or want to generate .milxly programmatically (for example via a script or an LLM-assisted tooling pipeline), contact gs-soft AG for the current specification:
gs-soft works with industry partners on MilX integration as part of broader MSS / MilX licensing — see the FAQ entry Can MSS and MilX Web Services be used by others? for context.