What file format can represent an uncompressed raster image at 48 or 64 bits per pixel?

Posted by finnw on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by finnw
Published on 2010-03-26T16:15:16Z Indexed on 2010/03/26 19:13 UTC
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I am creating screenshots under Windows and using the LockBits function from GDI+ to extract the pixel data, which will then be written to a file.

To maximise performance I am also:

  • Using the same PixelFormat as the source bitmap, to avoid format conversion
  • Using the ImageLockModeUserInputBuf flag to extract the pixel data into a pre-allocated buffer
  • This pre-allocated buffer (pointed to by BitmapData::Scan0) is part of a memory-mapped file (to avoid copying the pixel data again.)

I will also be writing the code that reads the file, so I can use (or invent) any format I wish. However I would prefer to use a well-known format that existing programs (ideally web browsers) are able to read, because that means I can visually confirm that the images are correct before writing the code for the other program (that reads the image.)

I have implemented this successfully for the PixelFormat32bppRGB format, which matches the format of a 32bpp BMP file, so if I extract the pixel data directly into the memory-mapped BMP file and prefix it with a BMP header I get a valid BMP image file that can be opened in Paint and most browsers.

Unfortunately one of the machines I am testing on returns pixels in PixelFormat64bppPARGB format (presumably this is influenced by the video adapter driver) and there is no corresponding BMP pixel format for this.

Converting to a 16, 24 or 32bpp BMP format slows the program down considerably (as well as being lossy) so I am looking for a file format that can use this pixel format without conversion, so I can extract directly into the memory-mapped file as I have done with the 32bpp format.

What raster image file formats support 48bpp and/or 64bpp?

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