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:
  FLV
  Sorenson Spark
  Sorenson H.263

GIF

 

H.263

H.263-1996
H.263+
H.263-1998
H.263 Version 2

H.264

MPEG-4 Part 10:
  H.264
  AVC

 

HEVC

High Efficiency Video Coding

 

MJPEG

Motion JPEG

MPEG1 Video

MPEG-1:
  H.261

 

MPEG2 Video

MPEG-2:
  H.222
  H.262

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

PDF

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