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Raw File Format Information






Raw File Formats concerning Digital Photography

Uses:

Finer control over digital processing, etc.

Raw files concerned with photography are formats that tend to contain information that is closely tied with the state of camera's sensors, and different manufacturers have different formats for this. These formats are distinct from generic raw graphics formats in that the information is generally centered around a bayer pattern of cells prior to any DSP being applied to it instead of color channel values in some color space.

For developers, there are some libraries available in various licenses to handle Raw camera data, which are listed below.

For Users

For Developers

Raw File Formats concerning Generic Graphics

Uses:

Processing, Memory or ROM dumps, etc.

Raw files concerned with generic graphics are formats that may be used by some applications or embedded devices to input, process and/or output information. The information is either stored the way it is because it preserves information or corresponds to a certain memory organization without decoding. The information stored may be in any kind of depth, ordering, endian-ness and alignment.

Generally raw files will probably be uncompressed (but this is not always true), and they tend to be in 1-bit through to n-bit depths, they may have any amount of channels and they may or may not be interleaved.

Here are sample orders a raw graphic format could be encoded:
RGB[R] [G] [B] [R] [G] [B] ...
BGR[B] [G] [R] [B] [G] [R] ...
CMY[C] [M] [Y] [C] [M] [Y] ...
CMYK[C] [M] [Y] [K] [C] [M] ...
Planar RGB[R] [R] [R] [R] ... [G] [G] [G] [G] ... [B] [B] [B] [B] ...

Raw File Formats concerning Audio

Uses:

Memory or ROM dumps, High quality sampling, sample playback on embedded devices, etc.

Raw files concerned with audio or sampled signals are formats that may be used by some applications or embedded devices to input, process and/or output information. The information is either stored the way it is because it preserves information or corresponds to a certain memory organization without decoding. The information stored may be in any kind of depth, ordering, endian-ness and alignment. Note that the information could be in the frequency domain with information on partials for each window, as opposed to a time domain sampled sound, depending on the use of the file.

Generally raw files will probably be uncompressed (but this is not always true), and they tend to be in 4-bit through to n-bit depths, they may have any amount of channels and they may or may not be interleaved.

Here are sample orders a raw graphic format could be encoded:
Interleaved[L] [R] [L] [R] [L] [R] ...
Reversed Interleaved[R] [L] [R] [L] [R] [L] ...
Planar[L] [L] [L] [L] ... [R] [R] [R] [R] ...

Extra information:

Raw File Formats concerning Miscellaneous Things

Uses:

Sampled things, tapes, etc.

Raw files can be used for a multitude of things and can be generated or recorded by a variety of specialized devices.

This list is too brief :(





Copyright 2000-2004 Edward L. Blake