IMAGE FILE FORMATS

 

The ViSTA program allows one to save and load images in different formats. There are four main sets :

1. Proprietary

2. Graphic

3. Scientific

4. Raw  

The proprietary formats are IMG and DIMF/ DIF (DTA IMage Format). IMG is an obsolete DTA format  we have dropped (it came from our old software running program called Vision) : ViSTA can only read it. DIMF is a format which includes the image as well as the instrumental parameters with whom it has been gathered. The minimum dynamics of the signal is 16 bit.The graphic formats that ViSTA can generate are : BMP, GIF, JPEG, TIF, etc. (see below for the complete list). These formats were not born for scientific purposes and their worst feature is to show tipically an 8-bit dynamics, thus losing much of the information. ViSTA produces these files by directly reading the bitmap on the video, not the numerical matrix in the memory. Because of this, it is necessary to optimize the visualization before saving the image in this format in order to draw out as much information as possible. Additionally, these formats lose the information about shooting.

The scientific formats used and internationally recognized are:

CDF (http://cdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/) . The National Space Science Data Center's (NSSDC) Common Data Format (CDF) is a self-describing data abstraction for the storage and manipulation of multidimensional data in a platform- and discipline-independent fashion. When one first hears the term "Common Data Format" one intuitively thinks of data formats in the traditional (i.e. messy/convoluted storage of data on disk or tape) sense of the word. Although CDF has its own internal self describing format, it consists of more than just a data format. CDF is a scientific data management package (known as the "CDF Library") which allows programmers and application developers to manage and manipulate scalar, vector, and multi-dimensional data arrays. The irony of the term "FORMAT" is that the actual data format which CDF utilizes is completely transparent to the user and accessible through a consistent set of interface (known as the "CDF Interface") routines. Therefore, programmers are not burdened with performing low level I/O's to physically format and unformat the data file. This is all done for them. The development of CDF arose out of the recognition by the NSSDC for a class of data models that is matched to the structure of scientific data and the applications (i.e. statistical and numerical methods, visualization, and management) they serve.

FITS ( http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/) . It has been designed by the astronomical community and it allows one to save images by keeping both the 16-bit dynamics (or even more) and a lot of essential information.

PDS (http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov) . (Originally Planetary Data System, now Portable Data Specification) The Planetary Data System (PDS) Data Model was presented at the Twelfth IEEE Symposium on Mass Storage Systems. This data model is used to represent the metadata that describes entities within the planetary science community such as data sets, spacecraft, and targets, as well as the archive data products produced by the PDS such as images, spectra, series, and qubes.

Raw format provides the BINARY formats. The saved image is written according to the original FORMAT. This format keep the original dynamics but they do not carry any information about the shooting of the image itself.

VICAR (http://www-mipl.jpl.nasa.gov/vicar/vic_file_fmt.html) . VICAR, which stands for Video Image Communication And Retrieval, is a general purpose image processing software system that has been developed since 1966 to digitally process multi-dimensional imaging data. VICAR was developed primarily to process images from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's unmanned planetary spacecraft. It is now used for a variety of other applications including biomedical image processing, cartography, earth resources, astronomy, and geological exploration. It is not only used by JPL but by several universities, NASA sites and other science/research institutions in the United States and Europe.

EXTENSION

DESCRIPTION

FIELD

MODE

COLOR

MULTI

IMAGES

FORMATS

.pix

Alias/Wavefront RLE image format

Graphic

R

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.iff

Amiga

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.pict

Apple Macintosh QuickDraw/PICT file

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.avs

AVS X image

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.mono

Bi-level bitmap

Graphic

RW

N

N

U8

.crw

Camera RAW format (see list)

Graphic

R

Y

N

RGB8, RGB16

.yuv

CCIR 601 4:1:1

Graphic

R

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.cdf

Common Data Format by NASA

Scientific

R

Y

Y

All

.gif

CompuServe Graphics Interchange

Graphic

RW

Y

Y

U8, RGB8

.dcm .dic

Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine

Scientific

R

Y

Y

U8, U16, RGB8, RGB16

.dpx

Digital Moving Picture Exchange

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.dds

Direct Draw Surface

Graphic

R

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.cut

Dr. Halo

Graphic

R

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.dimf .dif

DTA Image Format

Scientific

RW

Y

Y

All

.fax

FAX Group 3 TIFF

Graphic

RW

N

N

U8

.fpx

FlashPix Format

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.fits .fts .fit

Flexible Image Transport System by NASA

Scientific

RW

N

N

All

.sgi

IRIX RGB Image

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.bie .jbg .jbig

Joint Bi-level Image experts Group

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.jp2 .j2c .j2k .jpx .jpc

JPEG 2000 compliant

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.jpg .jpeg

JPEG compliant

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.jng

JPEG Network Graphics

Graphic

RW

Y

Y

U8, RGB8

.cin

Kodak Cineon Image Format

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.pcd

Kodak Photo CD

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.viff

Khoros Visualization Image File Format

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.mat

MATLAB Image Format

Scientific

R

Y

N

All

.miff

MAGICK Image File Format

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.avi

Microsoft Audio/Visual Interleaved

Graphic

R

Y

Y

U8, RGB8

.emf

Microsoft Enhanced Metafile

Graphic

R

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.dib

Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.mtv

MTV Raytracing image format

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.mng

Multiple Network Graphics

Graphic

RW

Y

Y

U8, RGB8

.otb

On-the-air Bitmap

Graphic

RW

N

N

U8, RGB8

.pdb

Palm Database ImageViewer Format

Graphic

RW

N

N

U8

.palm

Palm pixmap

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.picon

Personal Icon

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.pcds

Photo CD

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.psd

PhotoShop

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.pnm

Portable anymap

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.pbm

Portable Bitmap

Graphic

RW

N

N

U8

.pdf

Portable Document Format

Graphic

W

N

N

U8

.img .imq

Portable Data Specification by NASA

Scientific

R

Y

N

All

.pgm

Portable Gray Map

Graphic

RW

N

N

U8

.png

Portable Network Graphics

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.ppm

Portable Pixel Map

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.raw

Raw

Scientific

RW

Y

Y

All

.rgb

Raw red, green, and blue samples

Graphic

W

N

N

U8, RGB8

.ras .sun

Sun Raster File

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.tga

Truevision Targa File

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.tif .tiff

Tagged Image File Format

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.txt

Text format

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.tga

Truevision Targa Files

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.img .vicar

VICAR by NASA

Scientific

RW

N

N

All

.ico

Windows icon file

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.bmp

Windows or OS/2 bitmap

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.wbmp

Wireless bitmap

Graphic

RW

N

N

U8, RGB8

.p7

Xv's Visual Schnauzer thumbnail format

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.xbm .bm

X Windows bitmap

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.xpm

X Windows pixmap

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

.dcx .pcx

Zsoft Paintbrush

Graphic

RW

Y

N

U8, RGB8

Formats with the same extension name are automatically detected.