Nazeer Hussain University

Faculty of Engineering Practices and Sciences

Department of Computer Science
COMPUTER GRAPHICS
Prepared by:- Engr.Hermain
LECTURE 2 Fayyaz
Image File Formats
RASTER GRAPHICS FILE FORMATS
Link to previous lecture
This is the second lecture of Computer Graphics, which is extending the file formats for Raster
and Vector Graphics
The First lecture introduced Raster and Vector Graphics.
Image File Formats
Image file formats are standardized means of organizing and storing digital images. An image
file format may store data in an uncompressed format, a compressed format (which may be
lossless or lossy), or a vector format.
Image files are composed of digital data in one of these formats so that the data can be
rasterized for use on a computer display or printer.
Rasterization converts the image data into a grid of pixels. Each pixel has a number of bits to
designate its color (and in some formats, its transparency). Rasterizing an image file for a specific
device takes into account the number of bits per pixel (the color depth) that the device is
designed to handle.
Major graphic file formats
•Raster formats
• JPEG/JFIF •Vector formats
• JPEG 2000 • CGM
• Exif • Gerber format (RS-274X)
• TIFF • SVG
• GIF • Other 2D vector formats
• BMP • 3D vector formats
• PNG •3.3 Compound formats
• PPM, PGM, PBM, and PNM •3.4 Stereo formats
• WebP
• HDR raster formats
• HEIF
• BAT
• Other raster formats
• Container formats of raster graphics editors
Image file sizes
The size of raster image files is positively correlated with the number of pixels in the image and
the color depth (bits per pixel).
Images can be compressed in various ways, however. A compression algorithm stores either an
exact representation or an approximation of the original image in a smaller number of bytes that
can be expanded back to its uncompressed form with a corresponding decompression
algorithm.
Images with the same number of pixels and color depth can have very different compressed file
size. Considering exactly the same compression, number of pixels, and color depth for two
images, different graphical complexity of the original images may also result in very different file
sizes after compression due to the nature of compression algorithms.
Image file sizes (cont.)
With some compression formats, images that are less complex may result in smaller compressed
file sizes. This characteristic sometimes results in a smaller file size for some lossless formats
than lossy formats. For example, graphically simple images (i.e. images with large continuous
regions like line art or animation sequences) may be losslessly compressed into a GIF or PNG
format and result in a smaller file size than a lossy JPEG format.
For example, a 640 * 480 pixel image with 24-bit color would occupy almost a megabyte of
space:
640 * 480 * 24 = 7,372,800 bits = 921,600 bytes = 900 KiB
With vector images the file size increases only with the addition of more vectors.
Image file compression
There are two types of image file compression algorithms: lossless and lossy.
Lossless compression algorithms reduce file size while preserving a perfect copy of the original
uncompressed image. Lossless compression generally, but not always, results in larger files than
lossy compression. Lossless compression should be used to avoid accumulating stages of re-
compression when editing images.
Lossy compression algorithms preserve a representation of the original uncompressed image
that may appear to be a perfect copy, but it is not a perfect copy. Often lossy compression is able
to achieve smaller file sizes than lossless compression. Most lossy compression algorithms allow
for variable compression that trades image quality for file size.
JPEG/JFIF
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is a lossy compression method; JPEG-compressed
images are usually stored in the JFIF (JPEG File Interchange Format) file format.
The JPEG/JFIF filename extension is JPG or JPEG. Nearly every digital camera can save images in
the JPEG/JFIF format, which supports eight-bit grayscale images and 24-bit color images (eight
bits each for red, green, and blue).
JPEG applies lossy compression to images, which can result in a significant reduction of the file
size. Applications can determine the degree of compression to apply, and the amount of
compression affects the visual quality of the result. When not too great, the compression does
not noticeably affect or detract from the image's quality, but JPEG files suffer
generational degradation when repeatedly edited and saved.
JPEG 2000
JPEG 2000 is a compression standard enabling both lossless and lossy storage.
The compression methods used are different from the ones in standard JFIF/JPEG; they improve
quality and compression ratios, but also require more computational power to process.
JPEG 2000 also adds features that are missing in JPEG. It is not nearly as common as JPEG, but it
is used currently in professional movie editing and distribution (some digital cinemas, for
example, use JPEG 2000 for individual movie frames).
Exif
The Exif (Exchangeable image file format) format is a file standard similar to the JFIF format with
TIFF extensions; it is incorporated in the JPEG-writing software used in most cameras.
Its purpose is to record and to standardize the exchange of images with image metadata
between digital cameras and editing and viewing software.
The metadata are recorded for individual images and include such things as camera settings,
time and date, shutter speed, exposure, image size, compression, name of camera, color
information.
When images are viewed or edited by image editing software, all of this image information can
be displayed.
The actual Exif metadata as such may be carried within different host formats, e.g. TIFF, JFIF
(JPEG) or PNG. IFF-META is another example.
TIFF
The TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) format is a flexible format usually using either the TIFF or
TIF filename extension.
The tagged structure was designed to be easily extendible, and many vendors have introduced
proprietary special-purpose tags – with the result that no one reader handles every flavor of
TIFF file.
TIFFs can be lossy or lossless, depending on the technique chosen for storing the pixel data.
Some offer relatively good lossless compression for bi-level (black&white) images.
Some digital cameras can save images in TIFF format, using the LZW compression algorithm for
lossless storage.
TIFF (cont.)
TIFF image format is not widely supported by web browsers.
TIFF remains widely accepted as a photograph file standard in the printing business.
TIFF can handle device-specific color spaces, such as the CMYK defined by a particular set of
printing press inks.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software packages commonly generate some form of TIFF
image (often monochromatic) for scanned text pages.
GIF
The GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is in normal use limited to an 8-bit palette, or 256 colors
(while 24-bit color depth is technically possible).
GIF is most suitable for storing graphics with few colors, such as simple diagrams, shapes, logos,
and cartoon style images, as it uses LZW lossless compression, which is more effective when
large areas have a single color, and less effective for photographic or dithered images.
Due to GIF's simplicity and age, it achieved almost universal software support. Due to its
animation capabilities, it is still widely used to provide image animation effects, despite its low
compression ratio compared to modern video formats.
BMP
The BMP file format (Windows bitmap) handles graphic files within the Microsoft Windows OS.
Typically, BMP files are uncompressed, and therefore large and lossless;
their advantage is their simple structure and wide acceptance in Windows programs.
The oldest and simplest and uncompressed raster file format.
PNG
The PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file format was created as a free, open-source alternative
to GIF.
The PNG file format supports eight-bit paletted images (with optional transparency for all
palette colors) and 24-bit truecolor (16 million colors) or 48-bit truecolor with and without
alpha channel – while GIF supports only 256 colors and a single transparent color.
Compared to JPEG, PNG excels when the image has large, uniformly colored areas. Even for
photographs – where JPEG is often the choice for final distribution since its compression
technique typically yields smaller file sizes – PNG is still well-suited to storing images during the
editing process because of its lossless compression.
PNG (cont.)
PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF (though GIF is itself now patent-free), and can also
replace many common uses of TIFF.
Indexed-color, grayscale, and truecolor images are supported, plus an optional alpha channel.
The Adam7 interlacing allows an early preview, even when only a small percentage of the image
data has been transmitted.
PNG can store gamma and chromaticity data for improved color matching on heterogeneous
platforms.
PNG is designed to work well in online viewing applications like web browsers and can be fully
streamed with a progressive display option. PNG is robust, providing both full file integrity checking
and simple detection of common transmission errors.
Animated formats derived from PNG are MNG and APNG, which is backwards compatible with PNG
and supported by most browsers.
PPM, PGM, PBM, and PNM
Netpbm format is a family including the portable pixmap file format (PPM), the portable
graymap file format (PGM) and the portable bitmap file format (PBM).
These are either pure ASCII files or raw binary files with an ASCII header that provide very basic
functionality and serve as a lowest common denominator for converting pixmap, graymap, or
bitmap files between different platforms.
Several applications refer to them collectively as PNM ("Portable aNy Map").
WebP
WebP is an open image format released in 2010 that uses both lossless and lossy compression. It
was designed by Google to reduce image file size to speed up web page loading: its principal
purpose is to supersede JPEG as the primary format for photographs on the web.
WebP is based on VP8's intra-frame coding and uses a container based on RIFF.
In 2011, Google added an "Extended File Format" allowing WebP support for animation,
ICC profile, XMP and Exif metadata, and tiling.
The support for animation allowed for converting older animated GIF to animated WebP.
WebP (cont.)
The WebP container (i.e., RIFF container for WebP) allows feature support over and above the
basic use case of WebP (i.e., a file containing a single image encoded as a VP8 key frame). The
WebP container provides additional support for:
Lossless compression – An image can be losslessly compressed, using the WebP Lossless
Format.
Metadata – An image may have metadata stored in EXIF or XMP formats.
Transparency – An image may have transparency, i.e., an alpha channel.
Color Profile – An image may have an embedded ICC profile as described by the International
Color Consortium.
Animation – An image may have multiple frames with pauses between them, making it an
animation.
 HDR raster formats
Most typical raster formats cannot store HDR data (32 bit floating point values per pixel
component), which is why some relatively old or complex formats are still predominant here, and
worth mentioning separately.
Newer alternatives are showing up, though. RGBE* is the format for HDR images originating from
Radiance and also supported by Adobe Photoshop. JPEG-HDR is a file format from Dolby Labs similar
to RGBE encoding, standardized as JPEG XT Part 2.
JPEG XT Part 7 includes support for encoding floating point HDR images in the base 8-bit JPEG file
using enhancement layers encoded with four profiles (A-D); Profile A is based on the RGBE format
and Profile B on the XDepth format from Trellis Management.
RGBE* stores pixels as one byte each for RGB (red, green, and blue) values with a one byte shared
exponent. 32bits – 4bytes of color information.
HEIF
The High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is an image container format that was standardized
by MPEG on the basis of the ISO base media file format.
While HEIF can be used with any image compression format, the HEIF standard specifies the
storage of HEVC intra-coded images and HEVC-coded image sequences taking advantage of
inter-picture prediction.
 BAT
BAT was released into the public domain by C-Cube Microsystems.
The "official" file format for JPEG files is SPIFF (Still Picture Interchange File Format), but by the time
it was released, BAT had already achieved wide acceptance.
SPIFF, which has the ISO designation 10918-3, offers more versatile compression, color
management, and metadata capacity than JPEG/BAT, but it has little support.
It may be superseded by JPEG 2000/DIG 2000: ISO SC29/WG1, JPEG – Information Links. Digital
Imaging Group, "JPEG 2000 and the DIG: The Picture of Compatibility."
Other raster formats
BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is an image format from 2014. Its purpose is to replace JPEG when quality or
file size is an issue. To that end, it features a high data compression ratio, based on a subset of the HEVC video
compression standard, including lossless compression. In addition, it supports various meta data (such as
EXIF).
DEEP (IFF-style format used by TVPaint)
DRW (Drawn File)
ECW (Enhanced Compression Wavelet)
FITS (Flexible Image Transport System)
FLIF (Free Lossless Image Format) – a work-in-progress lossless image format which claims to outperform
PNG, lossless WebP, lossless BPG and lossless JPEG2000 in terms of compression ratio. It uses the MANIAC
(Meta-Adaptive Near-zero Integer Arithmetic Coding) entropy encoding algorithm, a variant of the CABAC
(context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding) entropy encoding algorithm.
ICO, container for one or more icons (subsets of BMP and/or PNG)
Other raster formats (cont.)
ILBM (IFF-style format for up to 32 bit in planar representation, plus optional 64 bit extensions)
IMG (ERDAS IMAGINE Image)
IMG (Graphics Environment Manager (GEM) image file; planar, run-length encoded)
JPEG XR (New JPEG standard based on Microsoft HD Photo)
Layered Image File Format for microscope image processing
Nrrd (Nearly raw raster data)
PAM (Portable Arbitrary Map) is a late addition to the Netpbm family
Other raster formats (cont.)
PCX (PiCture eXchange), obsolete
PGF (Progressive Graphics File)
PLBM – Planar Bitmap, proprietary Amiga format
SGI
SID (multiresolution seamless image database, MrSID)
Sun Raster is an obsolete format
TGA (TARGA), obsolete
VICAR file format (NASA/JPL image transport format)
XISF (Extensible Image Serialization Format)
 Container formats of
raster graphics editors
These image formats contain various images, layers and objects, out of which the final image is to be
composed
AFPhoto (Affinity Photo Document)
CD5 (Chasys Draw Image)
CPT (Corel Photo Paint)
KRA (Krita)
MDP (Medibang and FireAlpaca)
PDN (Paint Dot Net)
PSD (Adobe PhotoShop Document)
PSP (Corel Paint Shop Pro)
SAI (Paint Tool SAI)
XCF (eXperimental Computing Facility format, native GIMP format)
Vector formats
As opposed to the raster image formats above (where the data describes the characteristics of
each individual pixel), vector image formats contain a geometric description which can be
rendered smoothly at any desired display size.
At some point, all vector graphics must be rasterized in order to be displayed on digital monitors.
Vector images may also be displayed with analog CRT technology such as that used in some
electronic test equipment, medical monitors, radar displays, laser shows and early video games.
Plotters are printers that use vector data rather than pixel data to draw graphics.
CGM
CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) is a file format for 2D vector graphics, raster graphics, and
text, and is defined by ISO/IEC 8632.
All graphical elements can be specified in a textual source file that can be compiled into a
binary file or one of two text representations.
CGM provides a means of graphics data interchange for computer representation of 2D
graphical information independent from any particular application, system, platform, or device.
It has been adopted to some extent in the areas of technical illustration and professional design,
but has largely been superseded by formats such as SVG and DXF.
Gerber format (RS-274X)
The Gerber format (aka Extended Gerber, RS-274X) was developed by Gerber Systems Corp.,
now Ucamco, and is a 2D bi-level image description format.
It is the de facto standard format used by printed circuit board or PCB software.
It is also widely used in other industries requiring high-precision 2D bi-level images.
 SVG
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is an open standard created and developed by the
World Wide Web Consortium to address the need (and attempts of several corporations) for a
versatile, scriptable and all-purpose vector format for the web and otherwise.
The SVG format does not have a compression scheme of its own, but due to the textual nature of
XML, an SVG graphic can be compressed using a program such as gzip.
Because of its scripting potential, SVG is a key component in web applications: interactive web pages
that look and act like applications.
Other 2D vector formats
AFDesign (Affinity Designer document)
AI (Adobe Illustrator Artwork)
CDR (CorelDRAW)
DrawingML
GEM metafiles (interpreted and written by the Graphics Environment Manager VDI subsystem)
Graphics Layout Engine
HPGL, introduced on Hewlett-Packard plotters, but generalized into a printer language
HVIF (Haiku Vector Icon Format)
MathML
NAPLPS (North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax)
Other 2D vector formats (cont.)
ODG (OpenDocument Graphics)
!DRAW, a native vector graphic format (in several backward compatible versions) for the RISC-OS computer
system begun by Acorn in the mid-1980s and still present on that platform today
Precision Graphics Markup Language, a W3C submission that was not adopted as a recommendation.
PSTricks and PGF/TikZ are languages for creating graphics in TeX documents.
QCC, used by Quilt Manager by Quilt EZ for designing quilts.
ReGIS, used by DEC computer terminals
Remote imaging protocol
VML (Vector Markup Language)
Xar format used in vector applications from Xara
XPS (XML Paper Specification)
3D vector formats
AMF – Additive Manufacturing File Format
Asymptote – A language that lifts TeX to 3D.
.blend – Blender
COLLADA, .dgn, .dwf, .dwg, .dxf, eDrawings
.flt – OpenFlight
FVRML – and FX3D, function-based extensions of VRML and X3D
HSF, IGES, IMML – Immersive Media Markup Language
IPA, JT, .MA (Maya ASCII format)
.MB (Maya Binary format)
.OBJ Wavefront
OpenGEX – Open Game Engine Exchange
3D vector formats
POV-Ray scene description language
PLY, PRC, STEP, SKP
STL – A stereolithography format
U3D – Universal 3D file format
VRML – Virtual Reality Modeling Language
XAML, XGL, XVL, xVRML, X3D, .3D, 3DF, .3DM
.3ds – Autodesk 3D Studio
3DXML
X3D – Vector format used in 3D applications from Xara
Compound formats
These are formats containing both pixel and vector data, possible other data, e.g. the interactive
features of PDF.
EPS (Encapsulated PostScript)
PDF (Portable Document Format)
PostScript, a page description language with strong graphics capabilities
PICT (Classic Macintosh QuickDraw file)
WMF / EMF (Windows Metafile / Enhanced Metafile)
SWF (Shockwave Flash)
XAML User interface language using vector graphics for images.
Stereo formats
MPO The Multi Picture Object (.mpo) format consists of multiple JPEG images (
Camera & Imaging Products Association) (CIPA).
PNS The PNG Stereo (.pns) format consists of a side-by-side image based on PNG (
Portable Network Graphics).
JPS The JPEG Stereo (.jps) format consists of a side-by-side image format based on JPEG.
Summery
This lecture have different File Formats used for Computer Graphics nowadays.
They are of Raster, Vector, 3D, Compound and Stereo types.
They are used to define simple image, videoclip, animated images, and metadata.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats#Raster_formats,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats#Vector_formats