Image Formats Supported

There are 3 things required in a good raster image format for mapping use.

1. High compression to give small file sizes.
2. The ability for the image to be paged from disk to reduce the amount of memory required.
3. Fast loading of the image or image pages.

Standard Image Formats

BMP - Not recommended but is the only format supported in the shareware/demo version. No compression so image files are large. Image must be fully loaded into RAM.

The formats below can only be used in the registered version of OziExplorer.

TIF - The TIF format has many different variations and compression schemes which can be used. This format allows paging from disk so is efficient on memory usage.

• LZW compression - Gives good compression of maps and images.
• Packbits compression - Gives good compression of raster maps with solid colors but does not compress self scanned images very well.

This is the recommended standard image format to use if the larger file sizes when using packbits compression is not of concern.

24bit Color TIFF files can be used and are paged from disk as the 8bit color TIFF images are. (Please note that 24bit Planar TIFF images are fully loaded into RAM, for large images the amount of RAM required can be a factor in whether the images can be used or not.)

PNG - This format gives good compression but the image must be decompressed and fully loaded into memory (it cannot be paged from disk). This is the preferred "non-paging" format to use. (8bit or 24bit color images are supported)

ECW - Highly compressed format. This format allows paging from disk so is efficient on memory usage. Images can also be loaded from ECW image servers - see Importing ECW help for details.

SID - Highly compressed format. This format allows paging from disk so is efficient on memory usage.

JPG - Provides excellent compression but it is slow to load and the fully uncompressed image must be loaded into Memory (non-paging), not recommended for use with large images.

JP2 -  JP2000 is a format which gives good compression.  If the JP2 file is supplied with a (.j2w) file, OziExplorer can use it for geo-referencing.

Special Formats Used for Mapping

BSB - a proprietary format developed specifically for mapping, the use of professionally created images gives good compression and the image can be paged from disk. This format cannot be written by the user. This is a proprietary format which is licensed for use in OziExplorer.

Maptech PCX (.HDR,.A01,.A02....) - An older format produced by Maptech but still in use. This is a proprietory format which is licensed for use in OziExplorer.

Maptech Superdisk Format (.RML) - Similar to the PCX format above but the images are compressed. This is a proprietory format which is licensed for use in OziExplorer.

OziExplorer's own Formats

These formats below were developed especially for use in OziExplorer and OziExplorerCE. The Img2Ozf and MapMerge programs create Ozfx3 images. OZF and OZF2 are supported but no longer produced.

OZF2 / OZFx3 - These formats which give good compression, can be quickly paged from disk, are efficient for decompression of small image sections and also have separate images built into the format for zoom levels 25% and below. Other zoom levels below 100% (90, 80, 70 ...) are created as needed by OziExplorer using a smoothing function and look almost as good as the original image. There is a small disadvantage of having some of the zoom images included in the file as the file size is slightly larger but the nice looking zooms make up for this. 

See the separate help for the Img2ozf program for more details.

The OZF2 / OZFx3 format is the best format to use in OziExplorer for most map images.