Supported File Formats

For specific routine and object information used in IDL to access these type of files, see the Image Data Formats category under Input/Output.

Table 2-1: IDL-Supported Graphics Standards

Table 2-1: IDL-Supported Graphics Standards
Format	Description
BMP	Windows Bitmap format
DICOM	Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine
GeoTIFF	TIFF file with tags containing geographic data
GIF	Graphics Interchange Format
Interfile	Interfile version 3.3 format
JPEG	Joint Photographic Experts Group format
JPEG 2000	JPEG 2000 format
Motion JPEG2000	Motion JPEG2000 format
MPEG	Moving Picture Experts Group format
MrSID	Multi-resolution Seamless Image Database format
NRIF	NCAR Raster Interchange Format
PICT	Macintosh version 2 PICT files (bitmap only)
PNG	Portable Network Graphics format
PPM	PPM/PGM 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	X Windows Dump format

Scientific Data Formats

IDL supports the HDF (Hierarchical Data Format), HDF-EOS (Hierarchical Data Format-Earth Observing System), CDF (Common Data Format), and NetCDF (Network Common Data Format) self-describing, scientific data formats. Collections of built-in routines provide an interface between IDL and these formats. For specific routine and object information used in IDL to access these type of files, see the Scientific Data Formats category under Input/Output.

Table 2-2: IDL-Supported Scientific Data Formats

Table 2-2: IDL-Supported Scientific Data Formats
Format	Description
CDF	Common Data Format version 3.1
HDF	Hierarchical Data Format version 4.1r5
HDF5	Hierarchical Data Format version 5-1.6.3
HDF-EOS	Hierarchical Data Format-Earth Observing System version 2.8
NCDF	Network Common Data Format version 3.5

Other Data Formats

For specific routine and object information used in IDL to access these data types, see the Other Data Formats category under Input/Output.

Table 2-3: Other IDL-Supported File Formats

Table 2-3: Other IDL-Supported File Formats
Format	Description
ASCII	American Standard Code for Information Interchange
Binary	Digital data encoded as a sequence of bits
DXF	Drawing eXchange Format
ESRI Shapefile	Stores non-topological geometry and attribute information
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