Graphics Files

For the purposes of this book, graphics files are files that store any type of persistent graphics data (as opposed to text, spreadsheet, or numerical data, for example), and that are intended for eventual rendering and display. The various ways in which these files are structured are called graphics file formats. We will examine several categories of graphics file formats later in this chapter.

People sometimes talk of rendering an image to a file, and this is a common and perfectly valid operation. For our purposes, when an image is rendered to a file, the contents of that file become persistent graphics data. Why? Simply because the data in the file now needs to be re-rendered as virtual graphics data before you can see what it looks like.

Although the image is once again turned into graphics data in the process of rendering it to the file, it is now once more merely data. In fact, the data can now be of a different type. This is what happens in file conversion operations, for example. An image stored in a file of format type 1 is rendered (by a conversion program) to a second file of format type 2.

Which Graphics Files Are Included...

Although we've tried to stick to formats that contain graphics data, we've also tried to make sure that they are used for data interchange between programs. Now, you'd think that it's always perfectly clear whether a file contains graphics data or not. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. Spreadsheet formats, for instance, are sometimes used to store graphics data. And what about data interchange? A format is either used to transfer data from one program to another or it isn't, right? Again, it's not so simple.

Some formats, such as TIFF, CGM, and GIF, were designed for interprogram data interchange. But what about other formats, such as PCX, which were designed in conjunction with a particular program? There is no easy answer, but these two criteria--graphics data and data interchange--will take you a long way, and we've tried as much as possible to follow them here.

A complete list of all of the formats described is contained below in the section called "Format Summary".

...And Which Are Not

For the purposes of this book, we're excluding three types of files that contain graphics data but are outside the scope of what we are trying to accomplish here: output device language files, page description language files, and FAX files.

Output device language files contain hardware-dependent control codes that are designed to be interpreted by an output device and are usually used to produce hardcopy output. We exclude these, because they usually have a short lifetime as temporary files and with few exceptions are not archived or exchanged with other machines. Another reason is practical: many of the hundreds of types of printers and plotters built over the years use vendor-specific control information, which the market has traditionally ignored. By far the most common output device languages in use are Printer Control Language (PCL) and variants, used to control the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet series of laser printers and compatibles, and Hewlett-Packard Printer Graphics Language (HPGL), used to control plotters and other vector devices.

Page description languages (PDLs) are sophisticated systems for describing graphical output. We exclude page description languages from our discussion, because the market is dominated by PostScript and because the specification is voluminous and extremely well-documented in readily available publications. We do, however, provide an article describing Encapsulated PostScript format; that article briefly discusses EPS, EPSF, and EPSI formats.

FAX-format files are usually program-specific, created by an application designed to support one or more FAX modems. There are many such formats, and we do not cover them, because they generally are not used for file exchange. We do, however, include a brief article on FAX formats that discusses some of the issues you'll face if you use these formats. The main problem encountered by people working with FAX formats is finding information about compression algorithms. We've included a chapter covering some of the more common compression formats you will encounter.