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An Image file format is a
file format A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free. Some file format ...
for a digital image. There are many formats that can be used, such as
JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
, PNG, and GIF. Most formats up until 2022 were for storing 2D images, not 3D ones. The data stored in an image file format may be compressed or uncompressed. If the data is compressed, it may be done so using
lossy compression In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data si ...
or
lossless compression Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statisti ...
. For graphic design applications,
vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...
formats are often used. Some image file formats support transparency. Raster formats are for
2D image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
s. A 3D image can be represented within a 2D format, as in a stereogram or autostereogram, but this 3D image will not be a true
light field The light field is a vector function that describes the amount of light flowing in every direction through every point in space. The space of all possible '' light rays'' is given by the five-dimensional plenoptic function, and the magnitude of e ...
, and thereby may cause the vergence-accommodation conflict. Image files are composed of digital data in one of these formats so that the data can be displayed on a digital (computer) display or printed out using a printer. A common method for displaying digital image information has historically been
rasterization In computer graphics, rasterisation (British English) or rasterization (American English) is the task of taking an image described in a vector graphics format (shapes) and converting it into a raster image (a series of pixels, dots or lines, whi ...
.


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 In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
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. 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 640480 pixel image with 24-bit color would occupy almost a megabyte of space: :64048024 = 7,372,800 bits = 921,600 bytes = 900 
KiB The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
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 Image compression is a type of data compression applied to digital images, to reduce their cost for storage or transmission. Algorithms may take advantage of visual perception and the statistical properties of image data to provide superior resu ...
algorithms: lossless and
lossy In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data si ...
. 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 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.


Major graphic file formats

Including proprietary types, there are hundreds of image file types. The PNG, JPEG, and GIF formats are most often used to display images on the Internet. Some of these graphic formats are listed and briefly described below, separated into the two main families of graphics: raster and vector. Raster images are further divided into formats primarily aimed at (web) delivery (i.e. supporting relatively strong compression) versus formats primarily aimed at authoring or interchange (uncompressed or only relatively weak compression). In addition to straight image formats, Metafile formats are portable formats which can include both raster and vector information. Examples are application-independent formats such as WMF and EMF. The metafile format is an intermediate format. Most applications open metafiles and then save them in their own native format.
Page description language In digital printing, a page description language (PDL) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap (or generally raster graphics). An overlapping term is printer control la ...
refers to formats used to describe the layout of a printed page containing text, objects and images. Examples are
PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Do ...
,
PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
and PCL.


Raster formats (2D)


Delivery formats


= JPEG

=
JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
(Joint Photographic Experts Group) is a
lossy compression In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data si ...
method; JPEG-compressed images are usually stored in the
JFIF The JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF) is an image file format standard published as ITU-T Recommendation T.871 and ISO/IEC 10918-5. It defines supplementary specifications for the container format that contains the image data encoded with the JP ...
(JPEG File Interchange Format) or the
Exif Exchangeable image file format (officially Exif, according to JEIDA/JEITA/CIPA specifications) is a standard that specifies formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras (including smartphones), scanners and other syste ...
(Exchangeable image file format) file format. The JPEG
filename extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically ...
is JPG or JPEG. Nearly every digital camera can save images in the JPEG 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 also provides lossless image storage, but the lossless version is not widely supported.)


= GIF

= The GIF (
Graphics Interchange Format The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987 ...
) 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
dither Dither is an intentionally applied form of noise used to randomize quantization error, preventing large-scale patterns such as color banding in images. Dither is routinely used in processing of both digital audio and video data, and is often ...
ed 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.


= PNG

= The PNG (
Portable Network Graphics Portable Network Graphics (PNG, officially pronounced , colloquially pronounced ) is a raster-graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange ...
) file format was created as a free, open-source alternative to GIF. The PNG file format supports 8-bit (256 colors) 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 8-bit palettes with 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 lossy compression typically yields smaller file sizes – PNG is still well-suited to storing images during the editing process because of its lossless compression. 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 Disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain-containing protein 7 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ADAM7 gene. ADAM7 is an 85-kDa enzyme that is a member of the transmembrane ADAM (A Disintegrin and Metalloprotease) protein family. Mem ...
interlacing allows an early preview, even when only a small percentage of the image data has been transmitted — useful in online viewing applications like
web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
s. PNG can store gamma and chromaticity data, as well as
ICC profile In color management, an ICC profile is a set of data that characterizes a color input or output device, or a color space, according to standards promulgated by the International Color Consortium (ICC). Profiles describe the color attributes of a ...
s, for accurate color matching on heterogeneous platforms. Animated formats derived from PNG are MNG and APNG, which is backwards compatible with PNG and supported by most browsers.


= JPEG 2000

=
JPEG 2000 JPEG 2000 (JP2) is an image compression standard and coding system. It was developed from 1997 to 2000 by a Joint Photographic Experts Group committee chaired by Touradj Ebrahimi (later the JPEG president), with the intention of superseding th ...
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).


= WebP

= WebP is an open image format released in 2010 that uses both lossless and lossy compression. It was designed by
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
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 A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or acc ...
. In 2011, Google added an "Extended File Format" allowing WebP support for
animation Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...
,
ICC profile In color management, an ICC profile is a set of data that characterizes a color input or output device, or a color space, according to standards promulgated by the International Color Consortium (ICC). Profiles describe the color attributes of a ...
, XMP and
Exif Exchangeable image file format (officially Exif, according to JEIDA/JEITA/CIPA specifications) is a standard that specifies formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras (including smartphones), scanners and other syste ...
metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
, and tiling. The support for animation allowed for converting older animated GIF to animated WebP. 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. Text was copied from this source, which is available under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License


= 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 In radiometry, radiance is the radiant flux emitted, reflected, transmitted or received by a given surface, per unit solid angle per unit projected area. Radiance is used to characterize diffuse emission and reflection of electromagnetic radiati ...
and also supported by Adobe Photoshop.
JPEG-HDR JPEG XT (ISO/IEC 18477) is an image compression standard which specifies backward-compatible extensions of the base JPEG standard (ISO/IEC 10918-1 and ITU Rec. T.81). JPEG XT extends JPEG with support for higher integer bit depths, high dynamic ...
is a file format from Dolby Labs similar to RGBE encoding, standardized as JPEG XT Part 2.
JPEG XT JPEG XT (ISO/IEC 18477) is an image compression standard which specifies backward-compatible extensions of the base JPEG standard (ISO/IEC 10918-1 and ITU Rec. T.81). JPEG XT extends JPEG with support for higher integer bit depths, high dynami ...
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.


= HEIF

= The
High Efficiency Image File Format High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for storing individual digital images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video. HEI ...
(HEIF) is an image container format that was standardized by
MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and f ...
on the basis of the
ISO base media file format The ISO base media file format (ISOBMFF) is a container file format that defines a general structure for files that contain time-based multimedia data such as video and audio. It is standardized in ISO/IEC 14496-12, a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 12, and wa ...
. 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.


= AVIF

= AV1 Image File Format (AVIF) standardized by the video consortium Alliance for open media (AOMedia) creator of the video format Av1, to take advantage of modern compression algorithms and a completely royalty-free image format. It uses the image format with
AVIF AV1 Image File Format (AVIF) is an image file format specification for storing images or image sequences compressed with AV1 in the HEIF container format. It competes with HEIC, which uses the same container format built upon ISOBMFF, but HEVC ...
coding and recommends using the HEIF container, see AV1 in HEIF.


= JPEG XL

= JPEG XL is a royalty-free raster-graphics file format that supports both lossy and lossless compression. It supports reversible recompression of existing JPEG files, as well as high-precision HDR (up to 32-bit floating point values per pixel component). It is designed to be usable for both delivery and authoring use cases.


Authoring / Interchange formats


=TIFF

= The TIFF (
Tagged Image File Format Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word process ...
) 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 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 The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...
defined by a particular set of printing press inks. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software packages commonly generate some form of TIFF image (often
monochromatic A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, monochro ...
) for scanned text pages.


= BMP

= The
BMP file format The BMP file format, also known as bitmap image file, device independent bitmap (DIB) file format and bitmap, is a raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device (such as a graphics ad ...
(Windows bitmap) is a raster-based device-independent file type designed in the early days of computer graphics. It 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.


= PPM, PGM, PBM, and PNM

=
Netpbm format Netpbm (formerly Pbmplus) is an open-source package of graphics programs and a programming library. It is used mainly in the Unix world, where one can find it included in all major open-source operating system distributions, but also works on Micr ...
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 ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
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").


=Container formats of

raster graphics editors A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics file formats (also known as bitmap images) such as JPEG, PNG, and GI ...

= These image formats contain various images, layers and objects, out of which the final image is to be composed * AFPhoto (
Affinity Photo Affinity Photo is a raster graphics editor developed by Serif Ltd. for iOS, macOS, and Windows, alongside Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher. Development of Affinity Photo started in 2009 as a raster graphics editor for macOS. Its first v ...
Document) * CD5 ( Chasys Draw Image) * CLIP (Clip Studio Paint) * 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 GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized ...
format


Other raster formats

* BPG (
Better Portable Graphics Better Portable Graphics (BPG) is a file format for coding digital images, which was created by programmer Fabrice Bellard in 2014. He has proposed it as a replacement for the JPEG image format as the more compression-efficient alternative in t ...
) — 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 Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statisti ...
. 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 (FITS) is an open standard defining a digital file format useful for storage, transmission and processing of data: formatted as multi-dimensional arrays (for example a 2D image), or tables. FITS is the most commo ...
(Flexible Image Transport System) *
FLIF Free Lossless Image Format (FLIF) is a lossless image format claiming to outperform PNG, lossless WebP, lossless BPG and lossless JPEG 2000 in terms of compression ratio on a variety of inputs. FLIF supports a form of progressive interlac ...
(Free Lossless Image Format) — a discontinued lossless image format which claims to outperform PNG, lossless WebP, lossless BPG and lossless JPEG 2000 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 (CABAC) is a form of entropy encoding used in the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standards. It is a lossless compression technique, although the video coding standards in which it ...
(context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding) entropy encoding algorithm. *
ICO is an action-adventure game developed by Japan Studio and Team Ico, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment, released for the PlayStation 2 video game console in 2001 and 2002 in various regions. It was designed and directed by Fumito Ued ...
— container for one or more icons (subsets of BMP and/or PNG) * ILBMIFF-style format for up to 32 bit in planar representation, plus optional 64 bit extensions *
IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image. img or IMG may also refer to: * IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...
(ERDAS IMAGINE Image) * IMG ( Graphics Environment Manager (GEM) image file) — planar, run-length encoded * JPEG XR — JPEG standard based on Microsoft HD Photo * Layered Image File Format — for microscope image processing * Nrrd (Nearly raw raster data) * PAM (Portable Arbitrary Map) — late addition to the Netpbm family *
PCX PCX, standing for ''PiCture eXchange'', was an image file format developed by the now-defunct ZSoft Corporation of Marietta, Georgia, United States. It was the native file format for PC Paintbrush and became one of the first widely accepted DOS ...
(PiCture eXchange) — obsolete * PGF (Progressive Graphics File) * PLBM (Planar Bitmap) — proprietary
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...
format * SGI (Silicon Graphics Image) — native raster graphics file format for Silicon Graphics workstations * SID (multiresolution seamless image database, MrSID) *
Sun Raster Sun Raster was a raster graphics file format used on SunOS by Sun Microsystems. The format has no MIME type,.ras MIME type noregisteredat IANA it is specified in @(#)rasterfile.h 1.11 89/08/21 SMI. The format was used for some research papers. AC ...
— obsolete * TGA (TARGA) — obsolete * VICAR file format
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
/ JPL image transport format * XISF (Extensible Image Serialization 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 Electronic test equipment is used to create signals and capture responses from electronic devices under test (DUTs). In this way, the proper operation of the DUT can be proven or faults in the device can be traced. Use of electronic test equipmen ...
,
medical monitors In medicine, monitoring is the observation of a disease, condition or one or several medical parameters over time. It can be performed by continuously measuring certain parameters by using a medical monitor (for example, by continuously measuri ...
,
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...
displays, laser shows and early video games.
Plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting ...
s are printers that use vector data rather than pixel data to draw graphics.


CGM

CGM (
Computer Graphics Metafile Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) is a free and open international standard file format for 2D vector graphics, raster graphics, and text, and is defined by ISO/IEC 8632. Overview All graphical elements can be specified in a textual source ...
) is a file format for 2D vector graphics, raster graphics, and
text Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including: **Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred **Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
, and is defined by ISO/
IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
8632. All graphical elements can be specified in a textual source file that can be compiled into a
binary file A binary file is a computer file that is not a text file. The term "binary file" is often used as a term meaning "non-text file". Many binary file formats contain parts that can be interpreted as text; for example, some computer document fil ...
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 Technical Illustration is illustration meant to visually communicate information of a technical nature. Technical illustrations can be components of technical drawings or diagrams. Technical illustrations in general aim "to generate expressive ...
and professional
design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...
, but has largely been superseded by formats such as
SVG Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector image format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium s ...
and DXF.


Gerber format (RS-274X)

The Gerber format (aka Extended Gerber, RS-274X) is a 2D bi-level image description format developed by Ucamco. It is the de facto standard format for
printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich str ...
or PCB software.


SVG

SVG (
Scalable Vector Graphics Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector image format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium sinc ...
) is an
open standard An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definitio ...
created and developed by the
World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working ...
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 Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
, an SVG graphic can be compressed using a program such as
gzip gzip is a file format and a software application used for file compression and decompression. The program was created by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler as a free software replacement for the compress program used in early Unix systems, and i ...
. Because of its scripting potential, SVG is a key component in
web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serv ...
s: interactive web pages that look and act like applications.


Other 2D vector formats

* AFDesign ( Affinity Designer document) * AI (
Adobe Illustrator Artwork Adobe Illustrator Artwork (AI) is a proprietary file format developed by Adobe Systems for representing single-page vector-based drawings in either the EPS or PDF formats. The .ai filename extension is used by Adobe Illustrator. The AI fi ...
) — proprietary file format developed by
Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the cre ...
* CDR — proprietary format for
CorelDRAW CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation. It is also the name of the Corel graphics suite, which includes the bitmap-image editor Corel Photo-Paint as well as other graphics-related programs (see below) ...
vector graphics editor * !DRAW — a native vector graphic format (in several backward compatible versions) for the
RISC-OS RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archim ...
computer system begun by Acorn in the mid-1980s and still present on that platform today * DrawingML — used in Office Open XML documents * GEM — metafiles interpreted and written by the Graphics Environment Manager VDI subsystem * GLE ( Graphics Layout Engine) — graphics scripting language *
HP-GL HP-GL, short for Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language and often written as HPGL, is a printer control language created by Hewlett-Packard (HP). HP-GL was the primary printer control language used by HP plotters. It was introduced with the plotteHP-89 ...
(Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language) — introduced on
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
plotters, but generalized into a printer language * HVIF ( Haiku Vector Icon Format) * Lottie — format for vector graphics animation *
MathML Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is a mathematical markup language, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide W ...
(Mathematical Markup Language) — an application of XML for describing mathematical notations *
NAPLPS NAPLPS (North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax) is a graphics language for use originally with videotex and teletext services. NAPLPS was developed from the Telidon system developed in Canada, with a small number of additions from AT&T ...
(North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax) * ODG ( OpenDocument Graphics) * PGML (
Precision Graphics Markup Language Precision Graphics Markup Language (PGML) is an XML-based language for representing vector graphics. It was a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) submission by Adobe Systems, IBM, Netscape, and Sun Microsystems, that was not adopted as a recommenda ...
) — 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 (Remote Graphic Instruction Set) — used by DEC
computer terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal and ...
s *
Remote imaging protocol The Remote Imaging Protocol and its associated Remote Imaging Protocol Script language, RIP''scrip'', is a graphics language that provides a system for sending vector graphics over low-bandwidth links, notably modems. It was originally created ...
— system for sending vector graphics over low-bandwidth links * VML (
Vector Markup Language Vector Markup Language (VML) is an obsolete XML-based file format for two-dimensional vector graphics. It was specified in Part 4 of the Office Open XML standards ISO/IEC 29500 and ECMA-376. According to the specification, VML is a deprecated ...
) — obsolete XML-based format * Xar — format used in vector applications from
Xara Xara is an international software company founded in 1981, with an HQ in Berlin and development office in Hemel Hempstead, UK. It has developed software for a variety of computer platforms, in chronological order: the Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Z ...
* XPS (
XML Paper Specification Open XML Paper Specification (also referred to as OpenXPS) is an open specification for a page description language and a fixed-document format. Microsoft developed it as the XML Paper Specification (XPS). In June 2009, Ecma International adopte ...
) — page description language and a fixed-document format


3D vector formats

* AMF – Additive Manufacturing File Format *
Asymptote In analytic geometry, an asymptote () of a curve is a line such that the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero as one or both of the ''x'' or ''y'' coordinates tends to infinity. In projective geometry and related context ...
– A language that lifts TeX to 3D. * .blend – Blender *
COLLADA COLLADA (for ''COLLA''borative ''D''esign ''A''ctivity) is an interchange file format for interactive 3D applications. It is managed by the nonprofit technology consortium, the Khronos Group, and has been adopted by ISO as a publicly available ...
*.dgn * .dwf *
.dwg DWG (from ''drawing'') is a proprietary binary file format used for storing two- and three- dimensional design data and metadata. It is the native format for several CAD packages including DraftSight, AutoCAD, BricsCAD, IntelliCAD (and i ...
*
.dxf AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format developed by Autodesk for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs. DXF was introduced in December 1982 as part of AutoCA ...
*eDrawings * .flt
OpenFlight OpenFlight (or .flt) is a 3d geometry model file format originally developed by Software Systems Inc. for its MultiGen real-time 3d modeling package in 1988. Originally called Flight, the format was designed as a nonproprietary 3d model format for ...
* FVRML – and FX3D, function-based extensions of VRML and X3D *
glTF glTF is a standard file format for three-dimensional scenes and models. A glTF file uses one of two possible file extensions: .gltf (JSON/ASCII) or .glb ( binary). Both .gltf and .glb files may reference external binary and texture resources. A ...
- OpenGL Transfer Format *HSF *
IGES The Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES) is a vendor-neutral file format that allows the digital exchange of information among computer-aided design (CAD) systems. It's an ASCII-based textual format. The official title of IGES is ''Dig ...
*IMML – Immersive Media Markup Language *IPA * JT *.MA (Maya ASCII format) *.MB (Maya Binary format) *.OBJ
Wavefront In physics, the wavefront of a time-varying '' wave field'' is the set ( locus) of all points having the same '' phase''. The term is generally meaningful only for fields that, at each point, vary sinusoidally in time with a single temporal fr ...
*
OpenGEX The Open Game Engine Exchange (OpenGEX) format is a text-based file format designed to facilitate the transfer of complex 3D scene data between applications such as modeling tools and game engines. The OpenGEX format is built upon the data structu ...
– Open Game Engine Exchange *
PLY Ply, Pli, Plies or Plying may refer to: Common uses * Ply (layer), typically of paper or wood ** Plywood, made of layers of wood ** Tire ply, a layer of cords embedded in the rubber of a tire Places * Plymouth railway station, England, station ...
*
POV-Ray The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, most commonly acronymed as POV-Ray, is a cross-platform ray-tracing program that generates images from a text-based scene description. It was originally based on DKBTrace, written by David Kirk Buck and Aaro ...
scene description language * PRC * STEP * SKP * STL – A stereolithography format * U3D – Universal 3D file format * VRML – Virtual Reality Modeling Language *
XAML Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML ) is a declarative XML-based language that Microsoft developed for initializing structured values and objects. It is available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. XAML is used extensively ...
*XGL * XVL * xVRML * X3D *.3D *3DF *.3DM *
.3ds 3DS is one of the file formats used by the Autodesk 3ds Max 3D modeling, animation and rendering software. It was the native file format of the old Autodesk 3D Studio DOS (releases 1 to 4), which was popular until its successor (3D Studio MAX ...
– Autodesk 3D Studio * 3DXML *X3D – Vector format used in 3D applications from
Xara Xara is an international software company founded in 1981, with an HQ in Berlin and development office in Hemel Hempstead, UK. It has developed software for a variety of computer platforms, in chronological order: the Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Z ...


Compound formats

These are formats containing both pixel and vector data, possible other data, e.g. the interactive features of PDF. *EPS (
Encapsulated PostScript Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) is a Document Structuring Convention (DSC) conforming PostScript document format usable as a graphics file format. The format was developed as early as 1987 by John Warnock and Chuck Geschke, the founders of Ado ...
) *PDF (
Portable Document Format Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating syste ...
) *
PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Do ...
, a
page description language In digital printing, a page description language (PDL) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap (or generally raster graphics). An overlapping term is printer control la ...
with strong graphics capabilities * PICT (Classic Macintosh QuickDraw file) * WMF / EMF (
Windows Metafile Windows Metafile (WMF) is an image file format originally designed for Microsoft Windows in the 1990s. The original Windows Metafile format was not device-independent (though could be made more so with placement headers) and may contain both vect ...
/ Enhanced Metafile) *
SWF SWF ( ) is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.Open Screen Pr ...
(Shockwave Flash) *
XAML Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML ) is a declarative XML-based language that Microsoft developed for initializing structured values and objects. It is available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. XAML is used extensively ...
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 is a Japan-based organization set up in July 2002 to deal with technologies related to photography. Its members are engaged with the production of film-based and digital cameras, and other related equipment. This organization succeeds the Japan ...
) (CIPA). * PNS The PNG Stereo (.pns) format consists of a side-by-side image based on PNG (
Portable Network Graphics Portable Network Graphics (PNG, officially pronounced , colloquially pronounced ) is a raster-graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange ...
). * JPS The JPEG Stereo (.jps) format consists of a side-by-side image format based on
JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
.


See also

*
Display resolution The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution ...
*
Display aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a display device is the proportional relationship between the width and the height of the display. It is expressed as two numbers separated by a colon (''x'':''y''), where ''x'' corresponds to the width and ''y'' to the height ...
*
List of common resolutions This article lists computer monitor screen resolutions that are defined by standards or in common use. Most of them use certain preferred numbers. Computer graphics ; Pixel aspect ratio (PAR): The horizontal to vertical ratio of each pixel. ; ...
*
Graphics display resolution The graphics display resolution is the width and height dimension of an electronic visual display device, measured in pixels. This information is used for electronic devices such as a computer monitor. Certain combinations of width and height a ...


References

{{Graphics file formats * Lists of file formats Vector graphics markup languages