Supported Formats

Note

If you just want to know if a specific extension/format is supported you can search this page using Ctrl+F and then type the name of the extension or format.

ImageIO reads and writes images by deligating your request to one of many backends. Example backends are pillow, ffmpeg, tifffile among others. Each backend supports its own set of formats, which is how ImageIO manages to support so many of them.

To help you navigate this format jungle, ImageIO provides various curated lists of formats depending on your use-case

• Formats by Plugin
• Video Formats

All Formats

Below you can find an alphabetically sorted list of all extensions/file-formats that ImageIO is aware of. If an extension is listed here, it is supported. If an extension is not listed here, it may still be supported if one of the backends supports the extension/format. If you encoutner the latter, please create a new issue so that we can keep below list up to date and add support for any missing formats.

Each entry in the list below follows the following format:

extension (format_name): plugin1 plugin2 ...

where the plugins refer to imageio plugins that can handle the format. If you wish to use a specific plugin to load a format, you would use the name as specified here. For example, if you have a PNG file that you wish to open with pillow you would call:

iio.imread("image.png", format="PNG-PIL")

Format List

Note

To complete this list we are looking for each format’s full name and a link to the spec. If you come across this information, please consider sharing it by creating a new issue.

• 3fr (Hasselblad raw): RAW-FI

• DIB (Windows Bitmap): DIB-PIL

• IMT (IM Tools): IMT-PIL

• MCIDAS (McIdas area file): MCIDAS-PIL

• PCX (Zsoft Paintbrush): PCX-FI PCX-PIL

• SPIDER: SPIDER-PIL

• XVTHUMB (Thumbnail Image): XVTHUMB-PIL

• arw (Sony alpha): RAW-FI

• avi (Audio Video Interleave): FFMPEG

• bay (Casio raw format): RAW-FI

• bmp (Bitmap): BMP-PIL BMP-FI itk

• bmq (Re-Volt mipmap): RAW-FI

• bsdf (Binary Structured Data Format): BSDF

• bufr (Binary Universal Form for the Representation of meteorological data): BUFR-PIL

• bw (Silicon Graphics Image): SGI-PI SGI-FI

• cap (Scirra Construct): RAW-FI

• cine (AMETEK High Speed Camera Format): RAW-FI

• cr2: RAW-FI

• crw: RAW-FI

• cs1: RAW-FI

• ct (Computerized Tomography): DICOM

• cur (Windows Cursor Icons): CUR-PIL

• cut (Dr. Halo): CUT-FI

• dc2: RAW-FI

• dcm (DICOM file format): itk DICOM

• dcr: RAW-FI

• dcx (Intel DCX): DCX-PIL

• dds (DirectX Texture Container): DDS-FI DDS-PIL

• dicom (DICOM file format): itk

• dng: RAW-FI

• drf: RAW-FI

• dsc: RAW-FI

• ecw (Enhanced Compression Wavelet): GDAL

• emf (Windows Metafile): WMF-PIL

• eps (Encapsulated Postscript): EPS-PIL

• erf: RAW-FI

• exr (ILM OpenEXR): EXR-FI

• fff: RAW-FI

• fit (Flexible Image Transport System File): FITS-PIL fits

• fits (Flexible Image Transport System File): FITS-PIL fits

• flc (Autodesk FLC Animation): FLI-PIL

• fli (Autodesk FLI Animation): FLI-PIL

• fpx (Kodak FlashPix): FPX-PIL

• ftc (Independence War 2: Edge Of Chaos Texture Format): FTEX-PIL

• fts (Flexible Image Transport System File): fits

• ftu (Independence War 2: Edge Of Chaos Texture Format): FTEX-PIL

• fz (Flexible Image Transport System File): fits

• g3 (Raw fax format CCITT G.3): G3-FI

• gbr (GIMP brush file): GBR-PIL

• gdcm (Grassroots DICOM): itk

• gif (Graphics Interchange Format): GIF-FI GIF-PIL

• gipl (UMDS GIPL): itk

• grib (gridded meteorological data): GRIB-PIL

• h5 (Hierarchical Data Format 5): HDF5-PIL

• hdf (Hierarchical Data Format 5): HDF5-PIL

• hdf5 (Hierarchical Data Format 5): itk

• hdp (JPEG Extended Range): JPEG-XR-FI

• hdr (High Dynamic Range Image): HDR-FI itk

• ia: RAW-FI

• icns (Mac OS Icon File): ICNS-PIL

• ico (Windows Icon File): ICO-FI ICO-PIL

• iff (ILBM Interleaved Bitmap): IFF-FI

• iim (IPTC/NAA): IPTC-PIL

• iiq: RAW-FI

• im (IFUNC Image Memory): IM-PIL

• img: itk GDAL

• img.gz: itk

• ipl (Image Processing Lab): itk

• j2c (JPEG 2000): J2K-FI JPEG2000-PIL

• j2k (JPEG 2000): J2K-FI JPEG2000-PIL

• jfif (JPEG): JPEG-PIL

• jif (JPEG): JPEG-FI

• jng (JPEG Network Graphics): JNG-FI

• jp2 (JPEG 2000): JP2-FI JPEG2000-PIL

• jpc (JPEG 2000): JPEG2000-PIL

• jpe (JPEG): JPEG-FI JPEG-PIL

• jpeg (Joint Photographic Experts Group): JPEG-FI JPEG-PIL itk GDAL

• jpf (JPEG 2000): JPEG2000-PIL

• jpg (Joint Photographic Experts Group): JPEG-FI JPEG-PIL itk GDAL

• jpx (JPEG 2000): JPEG2000-PIL

• jxr (JPEG Extended Range): JPEG-XR-FI

• k25: RAW-FI

• kc2: RAW-FI

• kdc: RAW-FI

• koa (C64 Koala Graphics): KOALA-FI

• lbm (ILBM Interleaved Bitmap): IFF-FI

• lfp (Lytro F01): LYTRO-LFP

• lfr (Lytro Illum): LYTRO-LFR

• lsm (ZEISS LSM): itk tiff

• mdc: RAW-FI

• mef: RAW-FI

• mgh (FreeSurfer File Format): itk

• mha (ITK MetaImage): itk

• mhd (ITK MetaImage Header): itk

• mic (Microsoft Image Composer): MIC-PIL

• mkv (Matroska Multimedia Container): FFMPEG

• mnc (Medical Imaging NetCDF): itk

• mnc2 (Medical Imaging NetCDF 2): itk

• mos (Leaf Raw Image Format): RAW-FI

• mov (QuickTime File Format): FFMPEG

• mp4 (MPEG-4 Part 14): FFMPEG

• mpeg (Moving Picture Experts Group): FFMPEG

• mpg (Moving Picture Experts Group): FFMPEG

• mpo (JPEG Multi-Picture Format): MPO-PIL

• mri (Magnetic resonance imaging): DICOM

• mrw: RAW-FI

• msp (Windows Paint): MSP-PIL

• nef: RAW-FI

• nhdr: itk

• nia: itk

• nii: itk

• nii.gz (nii.gz): itk

• npz (Numpy Array): npz

• nrrd: itk

• nrw: RAW-FI

• orf: RAW-FI

• pbm (Portable Bitmap): PGM-FI PGMRAW-FI

• pbm (Pbmplus image): PPM-PIL

• pbm (Pbmplus image): PPM-PIL PPM-FI

• pcd (Kodak PhotoCD): PCD-FI PCD-PIL

• pct (Macintosh PICT): PICT-PIL

• pef: RAW-FI

• pfm: PFM-FI

• pgm (Portable Greymap): PGM-FI PGMRAW-FI

• pic (Macintosh PICT): PICT-PIL itk

• pict (Macintosh PICT): PICT-PIL

• png (Portable Network Graphics): PNG-FI PNG-PIL itk

• ppm (Pbmplus image): PPM-PIL

• ppm (Portable Pixelmap (ASCII)): PPM-FI

• ppm (Portable Pixelmap (Raw)): PPMRAW-FI

• ps (Ghostscript): EPS-PIL

• psd (Adope Photoshop 2.5 and 3.0): PSD-PIL PSD-FI

• ptx: RAW-FI

• pxn: RAW-FI

• pxr (PIXAR raster image): PIXAR-PIL

• qtk: RAW-FI

• raf: RAW-FI

• ras (Sun Raster File): SUN-PIL RAS-FI

• raw: RAW-FI LYTRO-ILLUM-RAW LYTRO-F01-RAW

• rdc: RAW-FI

• rgb (Silicon Graphics Image): SGI-PIL

• rgba (Silicon Graphics Image): SGI-PIL

• rw2: RAW-FI

• rwl: RAW-FI

• rwz: RAW-FI

• sgi (Silicon Graphics Image): SGI-PIL

• spe (SPE File Format): SPE

• sr2: RAW-FI

• srf: RAW-FI

• srw: RAW-FI

• sti: RAW-FI

• stk: tiff

• swf (Shockwave Flash): SWF

• targa (Truevision TGA): TARGA-FI

• tga (Truevision TGA): TGA-PIL TARGA-FI

• tif (Tagged Image File): tiff TIFF-PIL TIFF-FI FEI itk GDAL

• tiff (Tagged Image File Format): tiff TIFF-PIL TIFF-FI FEI itk GDAL

• vtk: itk

• wap (Wireless Bitmap): WBMP-FI

• wbm (Wireless Bitmap): WBMP-FI

• wbmp (Wireless Bitmap): WBMP-FI

• wdp (JPEG Extended Range): JPEG-XR-FI

• webm: FFMPEG

• webp (Google WebP): WEBP-FI

• wmf (Windows Meta File): WMF-PIL

• wmv (Windows Media Video): FFMPEG

• xbm (X11 Bitmap): XBM-PIL XBM-FI

• xpm (X11 Pixel Map): XPM-PIL XPM-FI

previous

Depreciating Python 2.7

next

Formats by Plugin