<file format> (IFF, full name "EA IFF 1985") A generic file format published by Electronic Arts as an open standard. IFF is chunk-based and hierarchical so files can include other files. It is easily extensible and an all round Good Idea. An IFF file starts with one of the following "group IDs": 'FORM', 'LIST' or 'CAT '. This is followed by an unsigned 32-bit number of bytes in the remainder of the file. Then comes an ID that indicates which type of IFF file this is. The main image type is ILBM, audio is either AIFF or 8SVX, animations are ANIM etc. An IFF file will probably have a filename extension related to this file type stored in the file. The rest of the file is divided into chunks each of which also has a four-byte header and byte count. Microsoft WAV and AVI are all based around an almost identical scheme to IFF called RIFF. The main difference is that, in RIFF files, numbers are little-endian as on Intel processors, whereas in IFF files they are big-endian, as on the Motorola 68000 processors in the Amiga where IFF files were first used. (1997-07-23)

Drawing Exchange Format

(DXF) A file format for graphical information, similar to IGES. Commonly used by CAD systems like AutoCAD. (1994-12-08)

AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format developed by Autodesk for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs.

DXF was introduced in December 1982 as part of AutoCAD 1.0, and was intended to provide an exact representation of the data in the AutoCAD native file format, DWG (Drawing). For many years, Autodesk did not publish specifications, making correct imports of DXF files difficult. Autodesk now publishes the DXF specifications online.

Versions of AutoCAD from Release 10 (October 1988) and up support both ASCII and binary forms of DXF.^: 59 Earlier versions support only ASCII.

As AutoCAD has become more powerful, supporting more complex object types, DXF has become less useful. Certain object types, including ACIS solids and regions, are not documented. Other object types, including AutoCAD 2006's dynamic blocks, and all of the objects specific to the vertical market versions of AutoCAD, are partially documented, but not well enough to allow other developers to support them. For these reasons many CAD applications use the DWG format which can be licensed from Autodesk or non-natively from the Open Design Alliance.

DXF coordinates are always without dimensions so that the reader or user needs to know the drawing unit or has to extract it from the textual comments in the sheets.

<graphics, file format> (JFIF) The technical name for the file format better known as JPEG. This term is used only when the difference between the JPEG file format and the JPEG image compression algorithm is crucial. (1998-02-10)

The JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF) is an image file format standard published as ITU-T Recommendation T.871 and ISO/IEC 10918-5.

In computing, an archive file is a computer file that is composed of one or more files along with metadata. Archive files are used to collect multiple data files together into a single file for easier portability and storage, or simply to compress files to use less storage space.

An Image file format is a file format for a digital image. There are many formats that can be used, such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF.

<file format> The kind of data stored in a file. Most modern operating systems use the filename extension to determine the file type though some store this information elsewhere in the file system. The file type is used to choose an appropriate icon to represent the file in a GUI and the correct application with which to view, edit, run, or print the file. Different operating systems support different sets of file types though most agree on a large common set and allow arbitrary new types to be defined. See also MIME. {FileInfo.net - The File Extensions Resource (http://fileinfo.net)} (2006-07-11)

<graphics, file format> There are many formats used to store images in files. GIF, TIFF and JPEG are very common. Others are BIFF, bmp, Clear, FITS, IFF, NFF, OFF, PCX, PNG, TGA, XBM. Some of these are documented on-line at the following sites: {The Graphics File Format Page (http://dcs.ed.ac.uk/image formatsmxr/gfx/)}. {The NCSA file formats archive (ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/misc/file.formats/graphics.formats)}. {The Avalon repository (ftp://avalon.viewpoint.com/pub/format_specs)}. [Others?] (1997-08-07)