3DS
A 3D image format used by Autodesk 3D Studio; contains mesh data, material attributes, bitmap references, smoothing group data, viewport configurations, camera locations, and lighting information; may also include object animation data.
A Plain text file formatted in ASCII. “American Standard Code for Information Interchange” is the universal standard for the numerical codes computers use to represent all upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and punctuation. ASCII makes is possible for text to be represented the same way on a Microsoft OS PC as it is on an Apple Mac.
An uncompressed raster image file made up of a rectangular grid of pixels; each pixel is a different colour (or level of grey for greyscale images), which together form an image; zooming in on a bitmap image will make it appear blocky since the size of each pixel increases.
BMP is short for “Bitmap”, the BMP format is a commonly used raster graphic format for saving image files. It is recognized by many programs on both Macs and PCs.
The BMP format stores colour data for each pixel in the image without any compression, while this method of storing image information allows for crisp, high-quality graphics it also produces large file sizes. The JPEG and GIF formats are also bitmaps, but use image compression algorithms that can significantly decrease their file size. For this reason, JPEG and GIF images are used on the Web, while BMP images are often used for printable images.
A “Comma Separated Value” file format contains data sets separated by commas, where each new line represents a new row; values can be organized into cells by a spreadsheet program or inserted into a database.
A Vector Image Files data format developed by Autodesk and used for CAD (computer-aided design) vector image files, such as AutoCAD documents. Similar to the .DWG format, but is more compatible with other programs since it is ASCII (text) based.
The DXF format was developed as a universal format so that AutoCAD documents could be opened more easily with other programs.
A Database of 2D or 3D drawings created with AutoCAD; a popular vector image format that stores both design data and metadata that describes the contents of the file; related to the .DXF format, which is an ASCII version of DWG. DWG files can be viewed on Windows using Autodesk's free DWG TrueView program or with other third-party applications.
A Raster Image file, high-quality graphics format. Designed to be a standard image format for storing high-quality colour images on multiple computer platforms.
“Graphics Interchange Format”. A Raster Image file that may contain up to 256 indexed colours; colour palette may be a predefined set of colours or may be adapted to the colours in the image; lossless format, meaning the clarity of the image is not compromised with GIF compression.
GIFs are common format for Web graphics, especially small images and images that contain text, such as navigation buttons; however, JPEG (.JPG) images are better for showing photos because they are not limited in the number of colours they can display.
Geography data format created by Galdos Systems and supported by the Open Geospatial Consortium; used by geographers for storing geographical data in a standard interchangeable format.
A Raster Image file. Compressed graphic format standardized by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG); supports up to 24-bit colour, which makes JPEG a good format for storing digital photos; compressed using lossy compression, which may noticeably reduce the image quality if high amounts of compression are used.
JPEG images are commonly used for Web graphics and for storing photos taken with digital cameras. They are usually saved with a .JPG extension. JPEG images are not limited to a certain amount of colours like GIF images are. Therefore, the JPEG format is best for compressing photographic images.
While JPEG images can contain colourful, high-resolution image data, it is a lossy format, which means some quality is lost when the image is compressed. If the image is compressed too much, the graphics become noticeably “blocky” and some of the detail is lost. Like GIF’s, JPEGs are cross-platform, meaning the same file will look the same on both a Mac and PC.
TAB format is the native file format of MapInfo. Tab files store both feature geometry and attributes. A logical MapInfo TAB file consists of several physical files, having the following file name extensions: .tab The main file for a MapInfo table, it is associated with the appropriate DAT, MAP, ID, and IND files.
Default interchange format for MapInfo applications.
Format used by MapInfo
Created by Adobe Acrobat or a program with the Acrobat plug-in; commonly used for e-mail attachments or for saving publications in a standard format for viewing on multiple computers; usually created from another document instead of from scratch. The PDF, or “Portable Document Format” is a multi-platform file format that captures document text, fonts, images, and even formatting of documents from a variety of applications. Since PDFs contain colour-accurate information, they should also print the same way they look on your screen.
PDF files may contain text, images, forms, annotations, outlines, and other data; they preserve fonts and formatting electronically across multiple platforms and appear the same on the screen as they will when printed on paper. PDF files can be created and edited with Adobe Acrobat, a commercial program or one of the many free PDF writers that are available. They can be opened and viewed using the free Acrobat Reader.
Image format that uses indexed colours and lossless compression (like a .GIF file), it cannot be animated like a GIF image, though the related .MNG format can. PNG images may also include an 8-bit transparency channel, which allows the colours in the image to fade from opaque to transparent; GIF images only support fully opaque or fully transparent pixels; PNG images are now supported by most Web browsers.
Geo-database format used to store infrastructural and geospatial data; supports multiple feature classes, which may each contain multiple geometric properties; optimized for large datasets of spatial information. The SDF format was developed by Autodesk and is used by several Autodesk programs, including Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise and AutoCAD Map 3D.
Object created and/or used by various 3D design programs; typically a three-dimensional image represented using polygons that are defined by vertices and lines; may also be a 2D drawing. ESRI Shapefile is a data set used by ESRI ArcView geographic analysis software; represents a set of geographic features such as streets, notable locations, ZIP Code boundaries, etc; can represent point, line, or area features; each object in a shapefile represents a single geographic feature and its attributes.
Three-dimensional model created by SketchUp software, an easy-to-use 3D design program; allows conceptual designs to be created, viewed, and shared quickly and easily; models created with SketchUp can placed within Google Earth or shared using the 3D Warehouse feature. SketchUp was originally developed by @Last Software, but was bought by Google in 2006; SketchUp 5 was the last version released by @Last; version 6 was developed by Google.
A High-quality Raster Image File graphics format that supports colour depths from 1 to 24-bit; designed to be a standard image format for storing high-quality colour images on multiple computer platforms; may contain multiple layers and pages. TIFF files can be saved in an uncompressed (lossless) format or may incorporate .JPEG (lossy) compression.
Proprietary Windows graphic format developed by Microsoft in the early 1990s; mainly a vector image format, but can also include raster graphics; mostly replaced by more standard fomats such as .GIF and .JPG images.
The XYZ file type is primarily associated with 'Graph Coordinates'. A number of CAD programs work with .XYZ files which are comma delimited text files containing just xyz coordinates of points in space.
Most images you see on your computer screen are raster graphics. Pictures found on the Web and photos you import from your digital camera are raster graphics. They are made up of grid of pixels, commonly referred to as a bitmap. The larger the image, the more disk space the image file will take up. Since raster graphics need to store so much information, large bitmaps require large file sizes. There are several image compression algorithms that have been developed to help reduce these file sizes. JPEG and GIF are the most common compressed image formats on the Web, but several other types of image compression are available.
Raster graphics can typically be scaled down with no loss of quality, but enlarging a bitmap image causes it to look blocky and “pixelated”. For this reason, vector graphics are often used for certain images, such as company logos, which need to be scaled to different sizes.
Unlike JPEGs, GIFs, and BMP images, vector graphics are not made up of a grid of pixels. Instead, vector graphics are comprised of paths, which are defined by a start and end point, along with other points, curves, and angles along the way. A path can be a line, a square, a triangle, or a curvy shape. These paths can be used to create simple drawings or complex diagrams. Paths are even used to define the characters of specific typefaces.
Because vector-based images are not made up of a specific number of dots, they can be scaled to a larger size and not lose any image quality. If you blow up a raster graphic, it will look blocky, or “pixelated”. When you blow up a vector graphic, the edges of each object within the graphic stay smooth and clean. This makes vector graphics ideal for logos, which can be small enough to appear on a business card, but can also be scaled to fill a billboard. Common types of vector graphics include Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, and EPS files. Many Flash animations also use vector graphics, since they scale better and typically take up less space than bitmap images.