7.1 The File Menu

7.1.27 Import/Raw Image Data

Raw Image Data is intended to read image files, that contain no format information but only the image content. They are in no way related to the Raw data files of digital cameras.

Raw image data are often used in the scientific area. Images created in this area are usually processed by software written in-house, and because those images usually have the same size and pixel format and to reduce the programming effort often non-standard files are created.

Most options of the Raw Image Data like Width, Height and Image Kind are self-explaining. Separated Channels defines whether image kinds containing several channels (like RGB) have separated channels (first all pixels of channel 1, then all of channel 2 and so on), or if the channels are meshed (pixel 1 channel 1, pixel 1 channel 2, pixel 1 channel 3, pixel 2 channel 1, pixel 2 channel 2, and so on). Extra channel controls whether there are are additional channels, which shouldn‘t be used.

If the image has 16 Bits per channel, the internal data format must be chosen: Little Endian (used by Intel and AMD processors) or Big Endian (used by PPC processors).

Line Overflow can be used to enter the amount of unused fill bytes at the end of each line. File Header defines the start of the image data in the image file.