Open HEIC File

Image File Formats

Storing and retrieving digital images is an important computer technology utilized on many computer platforms today. Digital images are composed either of pixel or vector data which can be processed for displaying on a monitor or for printing on a printer or plotter. Image file format defines the way digital image is stored on the disk or in memory.

There are three major types of image formats:

• Raster image formats
• Vector image formats
• Compound image format

In raster file formats images are stored as a sequence of pixels with corresponding colors and transparency levels. Raster files store resolution (number of pixels in an image line and number of lines) for an image inside them. Each pixel in raster image file is mapped to a specific coordinates of a target image.

Many raster image formats used on the internet use interlacing to support loading of lower resolution versions prior to full version of image is downloaded. Depending on interlacing algorithm image file can have multiple levels of details available for smoother download experience.

Popular raster image formats are JPG, PNG, GIFF, TIFF, PNG and BMP. HEIF and HEIC are the newer raster image formats which provide better perceptive compression quality and smaller file size.

In vector file formats images are stored as a set of drawing commands which computer needs to execute to get a final image. Computer CPUs and GPUs have specific accelerators for dealing with vector rendering commands and can perform them very quickly which makes opening vector files as fast as opening raster files.

Vector images are also popular on the internet for certain types of content like graphics, charts and logos. Besides internet vector images are used in other applications including games and CAD/CAM software.

Popular vector image formats are SVG, CGM, DWG, CDR, XVRML and AI. Most popular vector file format on the internet is SVG.

Compound image formats can contain both raster and vector information. When creating compound images there is a flexibility of choosing which format is more appropriate for a certain part of image. For example book page could have a background in raster format and text in a vector format.

Examples of compound image formats are PDF, EPS, PostScript (PS), WMF and SWF. PDF is a very popular file format for storing compound image information and has significantly richer functionality than just storing images.