arnold@ux.cs.man.ac.uk (Toby Howard) (05/06/89)
A short while ago I requested information on graphics formats to try and
make sense of them all. Wow! Seems a lot of people wanted to know too!
What follows is a rough attempt at this, with *MUCH* missing. Please send
me your comments/amendments/more info. Thanks to everyone who's helped in
this so far.
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Toby Howard Computer Science Department, University of Manchester, U.K.
Lecturer janet: toby@uk.ac.man.cs.p1
internet: toby%p1.cs.man.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
earn/bitnet: toby%uk.ac.man.cs.p1@UKACRL
uucp: ...!ukc!mup1!toby voice: +44 61-275-6274
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Here we go....
First the ones which seem to be the most popular:
CGM - FIPS PUB 128 (Federal Information Processing Standard in
the United States). Computer Graphics Metafile. Used in
transfer of picture type files (flat vector data).
CCITT - this is a common raster format, commonly known
as the facsimile coding scheme for Group 3 and 4 facsimile
apparatus. CCITT stands for Committe Consultatif International
de Telegraphique et Telephonique (or in english, International
Consultative Committee on Telegraphy and Telephony). The United
States Department of Defense has mandated with Military Standards
(MIL-STD-1840A and MIL-STD-28000) that this is the data
interchange requirements for raster data.
GIF - 'GIF' (tm) is CompuServe's standard for defining generalized color
raster images. This 'Graphics Interchange Format' (tm) allows
high-quality, high-resolution graphics to be displayed on a
variety of graphics hardware and is intended as an exchange and
display mechanism for graphics images.
IGES - ANSI standard Y14.26M, defines a neutral file format and
a standard set of entities which are used to transfer and
store product definition data created by computer aided
design and engineering systems. Contains object information
and can be 2 or 3 D images.
NFF - ASCII scene description encoding, for the Standard Procedural
Database
PCX - PC Paintbrush
PBM - Format used by the Portable Bitmap Manipulation package
(Jeff Poskanzer). This is a collection of programs for manipulating
raster images and converting between many different formats.
SUN raster - has magic number for identification, multiple
types identified in the header, 1-24 bit depth images
and colour maps may be present. See rasterfile.h on a Sun.
TIFF - Tag Image File Format. Created by Microsoft/Aldus.
XBM - X bitmap
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Summary List
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The following is excerpted from a document prepared by Keith Graham, the
author of a popular P/D software package called "Optiks". Optiks is more or
less a "graphics spreadsheet" concept, in that it can read in many formats,
and export quite a few. The document contains a listing of many graphics
formats, primarily those that are most commonly found on PC's. The
following is a partial list of the many graphics formats that are
available. Keith Graham started the list, and H. F. Van Brink added to it.
I have added a few more.
art PFS First Publisher Clip Art
art Ashton-Tate Byline Clipart
bas Basic Bload/Bsave (also basic programs)
bsg FONTASY (same as RAW)
ca NewsRoom Pro
ccitt Facsimile coding
cgm Computer Graphics Metafile
cut Dr Halo, Cut files
dat PrintShop
dcx Panasonic Fax PCX libraries
dd CBM Doodle
dhp Dr Halo
drw Freelance
drw MicroGrafx
drw NBI Legend
dxf AutoCad
eps Encapsulated Post Script
ev NCN Execuvision
fbm Fuzzy Bitmap Manipulation
fg Slidewrite Plus
gal Gallery on Exhibit, Graphics Gallery
gem GEM Draw
gmf Computer Graphics Metafile - Various Venders
gif Compuserve Graphics Interchange Format
gx1 PC PaintBrush
hips Heritable Image Processing System
hpc Hewlett Packard's LaserJet Graphics
hpg Hewlett Packard Graphics Language
iff Amiga Interchange Format File
iges CAD format
img DataCopy Wips
img GEM Paint
img IBM Image support Facility
img Boeing Graph
img ISI format
lbm DELUXE Paint II
mac Apple Macintosh Macpaint
mak Apple Macintosh Macpaint, No Header
msp Microsoft Windows Paint
nff Neutral File Format (Standard procedural database)
p Ashton-Tate Draw Applause
pbm Poskanzer Bitmap Manipulation
pcr OPTIKS/PCRGB
pcx PC PaintBrush
pda Palantir Scanner Graphics Files
pga IBM Professional Graphics Adaptor image file
pi1 Atari Degas uncompressed images
pic Lotus
pic Mouse systems PC Paint
pict Apple graphics format
pig Ricoh Pixel Image Generator file
prn PostScript, Any print image file
ras Show file Ras format
raw Basic Array format (OPTIKS reference only)
rle Compuserve, Teletext Run Length Encoded
sld AutoCad Slide
sfl Soft Font Single Letter
sfp HP Soft Font
shp Printmaster, Newsmaster
sun Sun rasterfile
tiff Aldus/Microsoft Tag Image Format Files
utah Utah Raster Toolkit format
wpg Word Perfect Graphics 5.0
xbm X Bitmap Format
--------------------------------------------------------------------peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (05/08/89)
In article <6057@ux.cs.man.ac.uk>, arnold@ux.cs.man.ac.uk (Toby Howard) writes: > iff Amiga Interchange Format File Actually, IFF is a general binary file format that includes standards for audio samples, sampled instruments, music, images, animations, formatted text, and so on. The image format is IFF/ILBM: interchange file format/interleaved bitmap. -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.