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
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
SPIDER:
SPIDER-PIL
XVTHUMB (Thumbnail Image):
XVTHUMB-PIL
arw (Sony alpha):
RAW-FI
avi (Audio Video Interleave):
FFMPEG
bay (Casio raw format):
RAW-FI
bmq (Re-Volt mipmap):
RAW-FI
bsdf (Binary Structured Data Format):
BSDF
bufr (Binary Universal Form for the Representation of meteorological data):
BUFR-PIL
cap (Scirra Construct):
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
dcr:
RAW-FI
dcx (Intel DCX):
DCX-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
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
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
ia:
RAW-FI
icns (Mac OS Icon File):
ICNS-PIL
iff (ILBM Interleaved Bitmap):
IFF-FI
iim (IPTC/NAA):
IPTC-PIL
iiq:
RAW-FI
im (IFUNC Image Memory):
IM-PIL
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
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
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 (Pbmplus image):
PPM-PIL
pct (Macintosh PICT):
PICT-PIL
pef:
RAW-FI
pfm:
PFM-FI
pict (Macintosh PICT):
PICT-PIL
ppm (Pbmplus image):
PPM-PIL
ppm (Portable Pixelmap (ASCII)):
PPM-FI
ppm (Portable Pixelmap (Raw)):
PPMRAW-FI
ps (Ghostscript):
EPS-PIL
ptx:
RAW-FI
pxn:
RAW-FI
pxr (PIXAR raster image):
PIXAR-PIL
qtk:
RAW-FI
raf:
RAW-FI
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
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