Data Formats: 3D, Audio, Image

The following are largely my personal collection of references to a range of data formats in use in the computer industry, some are just copies of manuals and documentation, others are my own investigations and associated reports. The largest section is on 3D geometric formats, but there are also notes on image formats, conventions and other miscellaneous data representation topics.

Standards are good, lets have lots of them. Anon

Geometric data formats

3D2	Stereo CAD-3D object format
3DML	Flatland 3DML language
AC3D	AC3D
3DS ASE ASC	3D-Studio File Format 3D Studio Max Ascii Export Format 3D Studio Ascii Format
asc	Arc Info Ascii grid
ALC	Alchemy III molecule file format
AL2	Alchemy 2000 molecule file format
BMF	3D data format BMF by David Farrell
BMF	BMF as used by FleetFeet and Volumental foot scanners
CDF	Cyberspace Description Format
CGM	Computer Graphics Metafile (ISO/IEC standard for vector graphics)
cinema4d	Cinema4d file format from "Maxon Computer"
glTF	GL Transmission Format
COB	Calgari trueSpace2 File Format
DAE	Sony / Khronos Collada
cmod	3D model format for Celestia
cube	Gaussian cube file format for volumetric data
dat	ECG files from the Holter recorder
dat/hea	ECG files from EDAN SE-2012 Holter recorder
DF3	Povray DF3 density (volumetric) format
Direct-X	Microsoft's answer to QuickDraw3D and OpenGL
DMO	Duke Nukem 3D or Redneck Rampage
DWF	Format used by AutoDesks attempt at an internet format for it's models, used by the WHIP viewer.
DXF2000 Release 14 Release 12 Release 10	DXF, AutoDesk/AutoCAD interchange format in the various format versions that have appeared over the years.
Minimal 3D DXF	The minimal requirements to represent 3D geometry in DXF, useful for creating geometry for commercial packages from your own software.
EDF and EDF+	European Data Format
EGDR	MOLA Experiment Gridded Data Record
e57	3D Imaging Data Exchange, most commonly laser scanners
FACT	From ElectricImage
FBX	Autodesk FBX
FFIVW	File Format for the Interchange of Virtual Worlds
fld	AVS Field format.
FLT	OpenFlight format by MulitGen Inc
GDF	GDF from the WAMIT software
GEO	Videoscape geo an early Amiga 3D animation program written by Allen Hastings.
Geom	Geom format as used by "Stereo", an OpenGL interactive stereo pair package.
GLF	3D font format for the GLF library
GOCAD	GOCAD ASCII data format
HDF	Hierarchical Data Format
HIV	HyperChem molecular format
HPGL	Hewlett Packard Graphics Language for platters
hf	Hyperfun: Language for F-rep Geometric Modelling
IGES	Initial Graphics Exchange Specification by the National Bureau of Standards
ILDA	International Laser Display Association
Infini3D	Infini3D internal format
Inventor	Inventor ASCII format from SGI
IRIT	IRIT interchange format by Gershon Elber
ktx	Format for storing textures for OpenGL
LAS and LAZ	LASer file format, currently version 1.4
ldt	EULUMDAT File Format
LWOB Lightwave 5.x	LightWave Object File format Importing geometry into Lightwave 5.x
MDL	From Cornell University and Indiana University
MGF	Materials and Geometry format originally appearing as part of the Radiance package. By Greg Ward, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
MI	Mental Images, as used by Mental Ray, SoftImage, and others
MOL2	Tripos mol2 molecule format
MovieBYU	Format from Brigham Young University to represent polygons, originally designed for FORTRAN file IO.
MS3D	MilkShape 3D format
MSLD	Manchester Scene Description Language
mme	Data format for crystals, notably for the Pacor software
MTL	Lightwave / OBJ material file
NDO	NENDO by Izware
nff	For Eric Haines' SPD package
nff	Neutral ASCII File Format
enff	Extensions to Neutral File Format
nrrd	Nearly Raw Raster Data
NUAGES	Format for the NUAGES software, a tool for 3D reconstruction from parallel cross-sections
OBJ	Wavefront .obj file format specification for the Advanced Visualizer software.
OFF	OFF format as used by the Geometry Center
OFF	OFF format specification originally developed by WSE.
OOGL	As used by GeomView
PEDR	MOLA Precision Experiment Data Records from NASA
PDB (V2.1)	Protein Data Base (Atomic Coordinate File)
PHD	Polyhedra Database (NetLib)
PI	Format for the polyray raytracer by Alexander Enzmann
PLG, FIG, WLD	Virtual World formats as used in Gossamer, Rend386, and others.
PLY	Polygon File Format also known as the Stanford Triangle Format.
Poly	Another Polygon Format from the University of Iowa, Image Analysis Facility
PS	Introduction to Postscript
POVRAY (v3.6) POVRAY (v3.7)	Scene format for the Persistence Of Vision RAYtracer (and derivatives). City Generator
PTX	Laser scan data format
PTS	Laser scan data format
PVL	Processed VoLume (and other RAW formats) as used by the Drishti volume rendering software.
PVM	Volume files from Stefan Roettger.
Macperspective	Translator for this undocumented format. The MacPerspective manual
nii	NIfTI-1 Data Format: Neuroimagine Informatics Technology Initiative
PowerFlip	Data format (SGI)
PRT	PRT raytracer format by Kory Hamzeh
PRT	Unigraphics "parts" file format.
q3o	Quick3D Object File and Scene file format (.q3s)
QuickDraw3D Primitive summary	Apple's Quickdraw 3D meta format
radio	Radio format by Anthony D'Agostino
RAD V3.1 RAD V2.5	Radiance scene description by Greg Ward. Converters (old)
RAW	PovRay raw triangle format
RAY RAY summary	RayShade scene description format, a solid modelling by Craig Kolb.
RIB	Pixar RenderMan scene description (RenderMan Interface Bytestream)
Rotater	Macintosh interactive line and point viewer by Craig Kloeden.
rsd	Playstation
SAT	ACIS 3D format for viewing and transferring solid information
SCENE	A proposed format for 3D geometry
SCN	SCeNe format designed to replace SFF for the Rtrace ray-tracer.
SDML Old SDML	Spatial Data Modelling Language
SGS	Stadtplan-Dateien Map File Format
SHP	ERSI Shapefile
sjt	SiroVision 3D image format
SLC	SLiCe format
STL	Industry standard format for stereoLithography.
STP	SteinLib format
STEP	Standard for Exchange of Product models
Super3D	Text export format used by the Macintosh modeller Super3D.
SURF	Export format from 3D-XplorMath
Tachyon	Preliminary scene format for Tachyon by John E. Stone
FORM TDDD	By Impulse's Turbo Silver for Sense8's WorldToolKit Neutral File Format specification
tet	Format for tetrahedra, originating at the Computer Science department of Williams College.
TIN	Triangular Irregular Network
TM	LONI triangle surface model format to represent surface models.
TP	TecPlot file format
TRI	Triangle format
txm	Xradia X-ray transmission image data
U3D	Universal 3D
UNREAL	UNREAL File Format
USD	Universal Scene Description
V	VIVID file format by Stephen Coy
VEF	Vertex - Edge - Face format
Vision3D	Text format for the Macintosh Vision3D modeller, manual (historic interest only)
VLA	Digistar II VLA format
vmd	VMD - WinOSi (XOSi, MacOSi) raytacer by Michael Granz.
vol	.vol by Mark Dow
vol	Paul Bourke volumetric data format
vox	Volumetric voxel format
VRI	Virtual Reality Interchange Language
vwf	Vioso Warp Format. Warp and blend data for multiple projector displays.
WLD	Morfit's WorldBuilder format
WRM	World Reference Model by Multigen Inc.
VRML V1.0	The Virtual Reality Modelling Language
WMF	Windows Metafile Format
XYZ	XYZ molecular format
YASRT	YASRT - Yet Another Simple Ray Tracer

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read. Groucho Marx

Image formats

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it. Jack Handey

Other data formats

Audio formats: AIFF, AU (SUn), WAVE. Descriptions of the minimal requirements necessary to create standard audio data files.

Stereo Pair Image File Format. Format for defining stereo pair attributes proposed by VRex Inc and the interleaved format.

Format for describing warp meshes for unusual projection environments.

Various EEG file formats and Conventions. Includes continuous (cnt) and average (avg) EEG format from neuroscan, EEG format as used at Westmead Hospital (Sydney), and Pauls ad-hoc ascii format for EEG.

Holter open ECG format

Convention for grid data storage.

Six is a number perfect in itself, and not because God created the world in six days; rather the contrary is true. God created the world in six days because this number is perfect, and it would remain perfect, even if the work of the six days did not exist. St Augustine

Other

Voxelation of mesh data: obj2vox

Reading binary files from PC's on "other-endian" machines, and how to read FORTRAN unformatted data files with C/C++.

Compression: Delta coding and Run Length Encoding compression. Simple compression scheme for audio and images.

Handling data from the Magellan SpaceMouse and decoding the data from a MicroSoft serial mouse

Various character and file standards. The famous ASCII code set. Latin Character set. ANSI Standard (X3.64) Control Sequences. VT100 commands and control sequences. Description of mmencode (rad64) format. MacBinary II format specifications. CSV - Comma Separated Value files.

Image camera sensor and paper dimensions in common usage

Random collection of connector pin outs

Hershey vector fonts

Beginners guide to bitmaps (Historic interest only). Mostly what one needs to know about how images are stored on computers, including colour depth.

Prediction is difficult, especially of the future. Niels Bohr

Contents: Papers, Presentations, Workshops − Geometry, Surfaces, Curves, Polyhedra − Fractals, Chaos, Self similarity − Domes, Planetariums, Fisheye, Spherical Mirror − Stereographics, 3D Projection − Panorama, 360 Video − Photographic Reconstruction − Miscellaneous: Projection, Modelling, Rendering − Data Formats: 3D, Audio, Image − Texture Library − Fun, Puzzles, Travel (All pages in one place) Recent: Cultural Big Data: Nineteenth to Twenty-first Century Panoramic Visualization − Cortical Development in the Structural Model and Free Energy Minimization − Digitising the Murten Panorama. The story behind the highest resolution scan of an artwork − Capturing high resolution stereoscopic panorama images with a single camera − Removing tourists from photographs by averaging − Focus Peaking - An Algorithm − Vertical Panoramas − Symmetry in Chaos − Dome Projection and Calibration for Offaxis Fisheye Lenses − Tools for Spherical Mirror Projection Copyright: The contents of this web site are © Copyright Paul Bourke or a third party contributor where indicated. You may print or save an electronic copy of parts of this web site for personal use, permission must be sought for any other use.