File Formats Supported in IDL
Image File Formats
| Format | Description | 
|---|---|
| BMP | Windows Bitmap format | 
| GIF | Graphics Interchange Format | 
| JPEG | Joint Photographic Experts Group format | 
| JPEG 2000 | JPEG 2000 format | 
| MPEG 1 & 2 | Moving Picture Experts Group format | 
| NRIF | NCAR Raster Interchange Format | 
| PICT | Mac version 2 PICT files (bitmap only) | 
| PNG | Portable Network Graphics format | 
| PGM | Portable Gray Map Format | 
| PPM | Portable Pixmap Format | 
| SRF | Sun Raster File Format | 
| TIFF | 8-bit or 24-bit Tagged Image File format | 
| X11 Bitmap | X11 Bitmap format used for reading bitmaps for IDL widget button labels | 
| XWD | Windows Dump Format | 
Scientific Data Formats
| Format | Description | 
|---|---|
| CDF | Common Data Format v 3.4.1 | 
| DICOM | Digital Imaging and COmmunications in Medicine | 
| GeoTIFF | TIFF file with tags containing geographic data | 
| GRIB/GRIB2 | GRIddedBinary Format | 
| HDF | Hierarchical Data Format version 4.2 r8 | 
| HDF5 | Hierarchical Data Format version 5-1.8.4 | 
| HDF-EOS | Hierarchical Data Format-Earth Observing System version 2.18 | 
| KML/KMZ | Google Earth™ mapping service format and compressed format | 
| MrSID | Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database format | 
| NetCDF | Network Common Data Format, all formats: classic, 64-bit offset, and NetCDF4 | 
| OPeNDAP | OPeNDAP via NetCDF | 
Video Formats
The combination of video file format and codec used for video streaming determines whether IDL can read a particular video file.
| Data Type | Read | Write | File to Select | 
|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe Flash (FLV) | • | • | .f4v, .flv | 
| Adobe Shockwave Flash (SWF) | • | • | .swf | 
| Animated GIF | • | • | .gif | 
| Apple QuickTime | • | • | .mov | 
| Audio Video Interleaved (AVI) | • | • | .avi | 
| DV (Linux only) | • | • | .dv | 
| Google WebM Matroska | • | • | .webm | 
| Matroska Video | • | • | .mkv | 
| Motion JPEG | • | • | .mjpeg, .mjpg | 
| Motion JPEG2000 | • | 
 | .mj2 | 
| MPEG-1 Part 2 | • | 
 | .mpeg, .mpg, .mp1, .m2v | 
| MPEG-2 Transport Stream | • | 
 | .ts | 
| MPEG-2 Part 2 | • | 
 | .mpeg, .mpg, .mp2, .mpg2, .mpeg2, .mpv, .m2v | 
| MPEG-4 Part 12 / 3GPP / 3GPP2 | 
 | 
 | .3gp, .3g2 | 
| MPEG-4 Part 14 | • | • | .h264, .mp4, .mpeg4, .mpg4, .mp4 | 
| RAW | • | • | .raw | 
Video Codec Formats
Codecs are used to encode data streams for transmission, storage, or encryption; and to decode the data streams for video playback.
| Name | Description | Read | Write | 
|---|---|---|---|
| BMP | Bitmap (Windows only) | • | 
 | 
| FLV | Adobe Flash Video:  | • | • | 
| GIF | 
 | • | • | 
| H.263 | H.263-1996 | • | • | 
| H.264 | MPEG-4 Part 10: | • | 
 | 
| HEVC | High Efficiency Video Coding | • | 
 | 
| MJPEG | Motion JPEG | • | • | 
| MPEG1 Video | MPEG-1: | • | 
 | 
| MPEG2 Video |  MPEG-2: | • | • | 
| MPEG4 | MPEG-4 Part 2 | • | • | 
| MSMPEG4V1 | MPEG-4 Part 2 Microsoft Variant Version 1 | • | • | 
| MSMPEG4V2 | MPEG-4 Part 2 Microsoft Variant Version 2 | • | • | 
| MSMPEG4 | MPEG-4 Part 2 Microsoft Variant Version 3 | • | • | 
| RAW | Raw video (uncompressed) | • | • | 
| VC-1 | Microsoft codec, also known as SMPTE 421M | • | 
 | 
| VP8 | Google codec | • | 
 | 
Other Data Formats
| Format | Description | 
|---|---|
| ASCII | American Standard Code for Information Interchange | 
| BIL, BIP, BSQ | ArcGIS Raster | 
| Binary | Digital data encoded as a sequence of bits | 
| CSV | Comma-Separated Value | 
| DXF | Drawing eXchange Format | 
| EPS | Encapsulated PostScript | 
| ESRI Shapefile | Stores non-topological geometry and attribute information | 
| IMG | ENVI image | 
|  | Portable Document Format | 
| PS | PostScript | 
| SYLK | Symbolic Link Format | 
| VRML | Virtual Reality Modeling Language | 
| WAV | Microsoft Waveform Format | 
| WAVE | Wavefront Advanced Data Visualizer Format | 
| XDR | eXternal Data Representation | 
| XML | eXtensible Markup Language |