Last Updated: 12 Feb 1997
If you are looking for information on a specific graphics file format then this is the place to start. We have many links to formats specification archives, standards organizations, and other Web pages devoted to file formats. If you don't find what you are looking for here, then try looking through Part 3 of the Graphics File Formats FAQ or on our Data Compression page. Oh yeah--you could also do a Web search.
The more popular file and data interchange formats are often called standards simply because they are used by a wide variety of software applications on several different operating systems. In fact, many popular formats are really de facto standards, existing without formal adoption by any official standards organizations (which would make them de jure standards ;-).
De facto standards are typically developed by one or more companies formed into a small consortium of interested parties, but the final standard is not submitted for approval to an official standards organization. These formats become standard only due to their wide acceptability and use. Even more common are ad hoc formats, which are created only to fulfill a specific purpose and nothing more.
This section lists graphical file and data formats that have been adopted by the computer graphics and imaging community as de facto standards. Many of these formats may have also found their way into acceptance by official graphical standards as well.
DXF is one of the most widely supported vector graphics formats in the world today. It is the native file format of Autodesk's AutoCAD program. You can find eth specs for DXF Release 10, R11, R12, R13, and the AutoCAD Slide Library File (SLB) format on the Minnesota CADWorks Web page.
The Electronic Arts file format is native to the Commodore Amiga computer, but by virtue of its multimedia versatility, has also found its way onto every other popular operating system. You can find the original EA IFF 85 specification in almost every file format archive.
FITS is a format originally defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), and later adopted by the NSDSSO, NSSDC, and NASA, to store and interchange astronomical data between scientific organizations. You can retrieve the FITS specification from the NASA FTP archive.
Surrounded by both popularity and controversy, GIF is one of the few pay to code formats you will eventually encounter. Although limited to 256 colors and 95DPI resolution, GIF images are found in vast quantities and supported by most image-using software applications. The specifications for both the 1987 and 1989 versions of GIF are readily available.
The Microsoft Bitmap (BMP), Windows Metafile (WMF), and Extended Metafile (EMF) are file formats native to the Microsoft Windows environments. There are no official file format specification published for BMP, WMF, and EMF. But there are documents in the Microsoft Software Developers Kit and Knowledge Base that describe bits and pieces.
The Kodak PCD format stores images at multiple resolutions on a compact disc. PCD is actually the format of the information encoded on a Kodak Photo CD. The actual image data is stored using the Kodak Image Pac format and the Kodak Photo YCC encoding scheme. Both PCD and Image Pac are proprietary formats, but Kodak does licensing of their use in software applications. Image Pac is a major competitor to JPEG.
A self-described turbo-studley bitmap format with lossless compression. PNG is targeted as the replacement for the less-capable more-legally-encumbered GIF format. PNG was recently approved by the WWW Consortium as a W3C Recommendation and has also been published as RFC-2083. You can get more information from the PNG Home Page.
The MNG format is a multi-image image extension of the PNG format. It is very much designed to add animation and multiple image storage freatures lacking in PNG, but plentiful in GIF89a. MNG, however, goes far beyond the capabilites of GIF.
Adobe PostScript is the most widely used page layout language. Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) files include a bitmap image embedded in the PostScript code, allowing illustrations and pictures to be included with page layout information. The formal description of PostScript is found in Adobe's five PostScript Language books. You can also find PostScript information on Adobe's Web page and FTP Site. Also check out the comp.lang.postscript newsgroup and the comp.fonts home page and FAQ maintained by O'Reilly's own Norm Walsh.
TIFF has a long history dating back to the mid-1980s, when it was created for use as an all-purpose raster file format. You may obtain a copy of the current Revision 6 of the TIFF specification in PDF and PostScript format. TIFF Revision 4 and Revision 5 specifications are also available. Also have a look around the TIFF Unofficial Home Page.
The MIT X Window System uses three native file formats for storing bitmap data. X Bitmap (XBM) stores two-color cursor and icon bitmap use in the X Window environment. X Pixmap (XPM) is capable of storing monochrome, grayscale, and truecolor bitmaps. X Window Dump (XWD) files are used to store screen dumps created by the X Window client. Information on these three formats is available from the X11 distribution documentation and header files of the X Window System. Also check out X11/Graphics for programs and libraries for the X11 environment.
The following anonymous FTP and WWW sites are known to archive file format specifications and information. These documents may be official releases of specifications by the creator/caretaker of the formats, or information transcribed by people from various sources and released onto the net, possibly without permission from the format's owner.
You think I'm the only person who spends their precious time on Earth collecting information on artifacts such as graphical file formats? Guess again...
This section lists graphical standards that have been through a formal process of development and approval by one or more standards organizations.
In fact, you will rarely see an entire standard devoted only to the subject of a file or data format. It is more likely that the format specification will be part of a larger body of work defining protocols for the exchange, storage, and manipulation of graphical data. In addition, many standards do not define new file formats, but instead specify existing standard formats (formal or de facto) that are to be used to store graphical data.
CDF is a self-describing data abstraction for the storage and manipulation of multi-dimensional data in a discipline-independent fashion. CDF is 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. CDF is maintained by the National Space Data Science Center (NSSDC) Other CDF-related Web pages include: Example of CDF Applications
CGM is a file format designed for the digital storage of illustrations as either raster or vector data or both. The CGM standard is a published International Standard (ISO 8632), an American National Standard (ANSI X3.122), and a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS 128). MIL-D-28003 is the DoD implementation of FIPS PUB 128 and MIL-STD-2301 for NIST. The CGM standard is being developed and maintained through a coordinated effort of ISO SC24 and ANSI X3H3, and the U.S. and international standards are identical. Check out the Advisory Group on Computer Graphics and the Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) Test Service Home Page.
DGM is a Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) standard for describing metadata or "data about data". Metadata describes the content, quality, condition, and other characteristics of data. The standard specifies the information content of metadata for a set of digital geospatial data used in GIS. This standard provides a common set of terminology and definitions for documentation that refers to this metadata standard. The LCGISN also has a page for this standard.
GKS is the American and International standard for 2D graphics. GKS is a library of FORTRAN or C callable routines that is used to plot lines, markers, text, polygons, and draw pixel data. GKS provides segments for selective update of images, a full range of input styles, color, and extensive workstation (graphics device driver) control functions. Code written using GKS is portable to other installations using different GKS implementations (except for opening GKS and opening a workstation).
IGES is a mechanism for the digital exchange of database information among computer aided systems. It provides a data format for describing product design and manufacturing information that has been created and stored in computer readable form. IGES information includes drawings, three-dimensional wireframe models, and surface models, and is intended for human interpretation at the receiving site. The IGES format is designed to be independent of all CAD/CAM systems. IGES is maintain by IGES/PDES Organization.
JBIG is a data encoding standard used to compress 1-bit, bilevel image data. JBIG is a prime example of a standard that does not define an interchange file format. Although it now does not need to. The recent extensions to JPEG have defined a file format (SPIFF) that will also store facsimile and JBIG-compressed data. JBIG is described by the ITU Recommendation T.82.
JPEG is a standardized lossy encoding method used for compressing truecolor and grayscale image data. JPEG if one of the most popular methods of data compression. JPEG data is stored in its raw form, or using the JFIF file format. Recent extensions to the JPEG standard have defined an official file format for JPEG (and others) data named SPIFF. The NIST JPEG standard is MIL-STD-188-198A. Also have a look at C-Cube's JPEG Overview page and the JPEG FAQ as well.
The Open MPEG Consortium (OM-1) is a committee formed of software and hardware developers/manufacturers that has the goal of standardization of MPEG software & hardware codecs (coder/decoder). By establishing standards the committee aims at portability of MPEG titles across various manufacturers' decoders. Also have a look at C-Cube's MPEG Overview page and Compression Technology page. And the MPEG Plaza contains as much MPEG as you could possibly eat.
NITFS is a suite of image processing and communications components described by MIL-HDBK-1300A. The NITF file format is described by MIL-STD-2500A
PHIGS is a standard defining a set of functions and data structure used to render and manipulate 3D graphical objects. PHIGS is defined in ANSI standard X3.144, ISO standards 9592 and 9593, and FIPS-153. Additional information on PHIGS is available in the comp.graphics.api.pexlib FAQ.
STEP provides a representation of product information along with the necessary mechanisms and definitions to enable product data to be exchanged. The exchange is among different computer systems and environments associated with the complete product lifecycle including design, manufacture, utilization, maintenance, and disposal. STEP is intended to replace IGES in all CAD/CAM/CAE applications and systems. STEP is maintained by IGES/PDES Organization.
There are many standards organizations that attempt to standardize, organize, and categorize everything from soup to nuts. Here is a short listing of organizations that have produced data standards and formats. If you are interested in primarily graphics file formats and standards, then you should start your standards journey with ANSI, IEC, ISO, and ITU.