Files and File Formats

Supported File Formats

LEADTOOLS currently supports over 150 different image formats and sub formats. With thousands of customers in all areas of applications development, LEAD Technologies continues to expand support for new formats and new format sub-types in response to the ever changing demands of developers worldwide.

Supported file formats and variants include: ABC,  JPEG XR / HDP, JPEG, JPEG 2000 (J2K, JP2, JPX), JBIG, DICOM, FlashPix (FPX), Fuji Exif 2.0 (EXF), PDF, Adobe PhotoShop (PSD), Kodak PhotoCD PCD, EPS, IOCA, MODCA, CALS raster (CAL), Windows Icon (ICO), Windows Cursor (CUR), PC Paintbrush (PCX), Multipage PCX (DCX), IMG, Windows DIB, FAX raw, Winfax (WFX), MAC, VDA, GIF (Embedded Text, Animated, Interlaced, Transparency), PNG, Targa (TGA), Sun Raster (RAS), Macintosh PICT (PCT), LEAD CMP, Windows BMP, OS/2 BMP, Microsoft FAX (AWD), Windows Metafile (WMF), Enhanced Metafile (EMF), WordPerfect (WPG), AVI, MPEG2, ISO, OGG, WMV, Microsoft Paint (MSP), TIFF 6.0 (MPT, JPEG, Packbits, Huffman, RLE, LZW, CMYK, CCITT, CCITT G31D, CCITT G32D, CCITT G4, Bitonal, Grayscale, Palletized, RGB, YCbCr, CIELAB), NITF, TDB, and XPS.

General File Format Support

Each image format has its own unique set of load/save/display options, which may encompass varying types and/or degrees of compression, a range of image information bit-depths, progressive (multi-pass) image display, the ability to maintain multi-page or multi-channel images, animations, or non-image data, just to name a few.

LEAD Technologies is constantly adding support for new file formats, and "flavor" support to formats already supported. The extensive format support provided by LEADTOOLS will give your application the flexibility to support almost any image you encounter.

Visit LEAD’s website at http://www.leadtools.com/sdk/formats/image-formats.htm for a complete list of LEADTOOLS’ file format support.

Vector File Format Support

Support for vector file formats is provided by the LEADTOOLS Vector Imaging Pro toolkit. Supported file formats include Vector File Formats include CGM, DGN, DRW, DWF, DWG, DXF, EMF, WMF, PLT, Gerber, PCL, PCT, SVG, VWPG, CMX, NAP and SHP. LEADTOOLS Vector Imaging provides 2-D and 3-D vector imaging for loading, viewing, modifying and saving vector files to memory/disk in native vector format. Objects are represented as exact geometrical entities, rather than approximated by a collection of discrete pixels, making them inherently scalable and suitable for other mathematical transformations. Drawing and CAD/CAM programs typically use vector images.

For more information on the support provided by the LEADTOOLS Vector Imaging Pro toolkit, refer to:

Vector Imaging

MRC File Format Support

The LEADTOOLS MRC (Mixed Raster Content) file format results in both high compression factors and high detail retention. This format enhances LEADTOOLS file input/output functionality by adding support for raster color documents containing mixed image and text components. The MRC file format breaks an image into three different layers: foreground, background, and mask. Each layer is compressed separately using the best type of compression for that data type and is later uncompressed and recombined to restore the original image. Because standard compression schemes are geared towards an image being entirely text or color, the MRC model offers the advantage of using optimal compression for images that have both text and color in the same image.

The foreground layer contains color data for the text and line art, and may also contain photographic or continuous tone color data. The background layer generally contains low-resolution color image data, such as a background image, a wash or other pattern that would have text overlaid on it. The mask layer or the selector layer controls the process of image regeneration contains binary image data that is high spatial resolution, such as text and line art. This layer is used for drawing the corresponding foreground and background layers.

Segmentation can be performed automatically with the option to optimize it manually or it can be done only manually. Compression can be specified for each area type. The compression for 1-bit black and white areas can be CCITT G3 1D, CCITT G4 2D, CCITT G4 or JBIG. The compression for color areas is JPEG.

The LEADTOOLS MRC File Format support is available in the following products:

LEADTOOLS Document Imaging

LEADTOOLS Recognition

LEADTOOLS Document Imaging Suite

LEADTOOLS Medical Imaging

LEADTOOLS PACS Imaging

PDF File Format Support

Support for the Portable Document Format, (PDF) is provided by the LEADTOOLS PDF Plug-in, which can be added to any toolkit to extend support for PDF, PDF/A, Postscript, and EPS formats.

For more information, refer to:

LEADTOOLS PDF Plug-ins

Multimedia File Format Support

Non-Multimedia toolkits can load AVI as raster still images and can save AVI files.

In the LEADTOOLS Multimedia toolkits, LEAD provides much more extensive support for multimedia formats. LEADTOOLS Multimedia products can playback any input file format supported by DirectShow, including:

LEADTOOLS Multimedia products can convert any of the supported playback file formats to:

For more information on the support provided by the LEADTOOLS Multimedia toolkits, refer to:

LEADTOOLS Multimedia

Working with Files

Each image format has its own unique set of load/save/display options, which may encompass varying types and/or degrees of compression, a range of image information bit-depths, progressive (multi-pass) image display, the ability to maintain multi-page or multi-channel images, animations, or non-image data, just to name a few. LEADTOOLS offers extensive libraries of functions that allow you to deal with each type of image format and its special options, whether its Comments, Getting and Setting File Information, Layers, Loading Files, Multipage Files, Saving Files, or Tags. Each of these unique options is described in more detail in the following sections.

Comments

Some file formats can contain comments, and some cannot, and each file format has its own set of comment types. LEADTOOLS supports each of the following types of comments in one or more products:

Getting and Setting File Information

LEADTOOLS provides extensive functionality for getting file information. Whether an image file is on disk or in memory, you can get information about the image before loading it. You can also handle file-format-specific information, such as the page number or physical resolution. Support includes functions that allow you to:

Functionality for setting file information is just as extensive. Support includes functions that allow you to:

Layers

PSD file formats support layers. LEADTOOLS provides functionality to allow the loading of an individual layer. PSD files can also be saved with layer information.

Loading Files

LEADTOOLS provides many options when loading image files. You can load an image at its own color resolution, manipulate it, and display it, regardless of current video mode. You can also convert the image to a specific color resolution (bits per pixel) as you load or save it. You can supply the input for a load operation or the output of a save operation, and you can add processing, such as a paint-while-load feature. You can control the execution of a load procedure as you supply transmitted image data. You can also load an image from a file, into a bitmap, and resize the bitmap as it loads.

The LEAD and JPEG (JFIF) file formats can be extended to support progressive loading and saving of images. Progressive loading is useful for transmitting images, because the first part of the file contains the full dimensions of the image. If you want to take advantage of this feature when loading a progressive file, you can control the number of passes that are required to complete the image.

JBIG and JPEG2000 also support progressive loading of an image.

Multipage Files

LEADTOOLS supports multipage file formats and formats that emulate multi-page files. These include:

When working with multipage files, you can delete individual pages within the file. When loading a multipage file, you can load all pages, or use a different function to load only one of the pages.

To load and play an animated GIF file, you can load a list of bitmaps from the file, and then play the list to a target bitmap in a loop that displays each change in the target bitmap. You can also create an animation sequence from scratch and save the bitmaps to create an animated GIF file.

Saving Files

LEADTOOLS provides many options when saving image files. You can convert an image to a specific color resolution (bits per pixel) as you save it. You can save a bitmap to a file in a memory buffer.

The LEAD and JPEG (JFIF) file formats can be extended to support progressive loading and saving of images. Progressive loading is useful for transmitting images, because the first part of the file contains the full dimensions of the image. If you want to save a progressive file, you can control the number of passes that are required to complete the image.

Tags

The TIFF file formats support a number of comments that are saved and loaded using predefined tags. LEADTOOLS provides functionality to specify a comment to be saved as well as read and write comments. If the comments do not meet your needs, you can define your own tag for saving additional non-raster data in a TIFF file. The LEADTOOLS functions let you save one additional tag in a TIFF file. They are designed for future expansion to more than one tag.

See Also

 

LEADTOOLS Imaging

LEADTOOLS Imaging Pro

LEADTOOLS Vector Imaging Pro

LEADTOOLS Document Imaging

LEADTOOLS Recognition

LEADTOOLS Document Imaging Suite

LEADTOOLS Medical Imaging

LEADTOOLS PACS Imaging

LEADTOOLS Medical Imaging Suite

LEADTOOLS Multimedia