Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats

By William vanRyper and James Dickson Murray

Book Overview

There are many different file formats used for storing graphics data; such data includes vector graphics, ray tracing, black-and-white photographs, truecolor images, animation data, motion video, and multimedia data. The "Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats" covers them all, nearly 100: from major, standardized formats, like GIF, TIFF, TGA, and BMP to newer or specialized formats, like SGI YAODL, Rayshade, and Facesaver. If you are a graphics programmer who needs to know the details of a format (whether it's big- or little-endian, how many colors can be stored, and precisely what data appears in each bit or pixel) or anyone else who needs to deal with the low-level technical details of graphics files, this book is for you.The"Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats" is truly definitive; it's the book that will become a classic for programmers on any platform-- MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, UNIX, the Macintosh, and others.In addition to describing the details of the file formats, the"Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats" contains a detailed discussion of graphics concepts and programming, covering such topics as types of graphics data (vector, bitmap, metafile, scene description, animation, multimedia), truecolor, palettes, and color--its perception, conversion, and quantization. It describes in detail different methods of compressing graphics data (e.g., run-length encoding, LZW, CCITT, JPEG) and ways of converting from one type of file format to another. It also includes information on new graphics initiatives, including JPEG (an emerging image data compression standard of particular interest in multimedia technology) and MPEG (a set of digital and audio compression standards for sound and motion picture data).Best of all, this book comes with a CD-ROM on which we've included a collection of resources that are hard for individuals to find (in many cases, they have never before been available outside the organizations that developed them). We've assembled original file format specification documents from such vendors as Adobe, Aldus, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and Silicon Graphics, along with test images and code examples for many of the formats. Also on the CD-ROM is a set of free or public domain software and shareware--for MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, UNIX, and Macintosh platforms--that will let you convert, view, and manipulate graphics files and images.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565920589
• ISBN13: 9781565920583
• Release Date: July 1994
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 928 Pages
• Weight: 3.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding Reference Book!

I've kept this book next to my computer desk for quite some time because I consider it an essential reference. There has never been a question about graphic file formats that I haven't been able to answer using this book. I feel the authors have done an outstanding job describing everything from the basics to complex file format features in a language that someone who isn't an artist can understand. As an application developer, I often need to know what's going on behind the scenes and this book makes everything clear.This book is getting a tad dated, but still extremely valuable and a good buy. I'd love to see the authors update it. I know that I'd be the first in line to get the next edition.

int data conversion to image .tiff

I need to convert a int array to a image of type raw, or tiff, or vf

A great book for reference

This book is a great book for the professional programmer as it has very detailed referneces concerning nearly all the graphical file formats out there.

If you are a programmer you must have this book!

Technically accurate and very thourough, this is a must have for any programmer who even considers devloping a graphics application. The information found between it's covers shed light on many of the more cryptic issues one might encounter when dealing with graphics file formats. Simply put, an excellent reference.

Marvelous reference

I'm not a programmer, but I turned to this title to inform myself on compression algorithms and the underlying pieces that comprise graphic (or graphics) file formats. It's lucid, well-illustrated, and not too dense.