Type

Extension

Read

Write

3D

stack

Comments

MRC

mrc

Y

Y

Y

N

Note that some programs will treat 3D MRC files as stacks of 2D imagess (like IMOD). This behavior is partially supported in EMAN, but be aware that it is impossible to store metadata about each image in the stack when doing this, so it is not suitable as an export format for single particle work.

Spider

spi

Y

Y

Y

Y

To read the overall image header in a stacked spider file, use image_index = -1.

Imagic

img/hed

Y

Y

Y

Y

seperate header and data file, cannot store multiple 3D images in one file

HDF5

hdf

Y

Y

Y

Y

can write different size image into same stack

DM3

dm3

Y

N

N

N

TIFF

tiff/tif

Y

Y

N

N

8bit or 16bit per pixel

PGM

pgm

Y

Y

N

N

8 bits per pixel

LST

lst

Y

Y

Y

Y

ASCII file contains a list of image file names

PIF

pif

Y

Y

Y

Y

images in PIF stack are homogenous. PIF doesn't currently work.

VTK

vtk

Y

Y

Y

N

PNG

png

Y

Y

N

N

lossless data compression, 8 bit or 16 bit per pixel

SAL

hdr/img

Y

N

N

N

seperate header and data file

ICOS

icos

Y

Y

Y

N

EMIM

emim

Y

N

Y

Y

images in stack are homogenous

Gatan2

dm2

Y

N

N

N

Amira

am

Y

Y

Y

N

XPLOR

xplor

Y

Y

Y

N

8 bytes integer, 12.5E float format

EM

em

Y

Y

Y

N

V4L

v4l

Y

N

N

N

Acquires images from the V4L2 interface in real-time(video4linux).

JPEG

jpg/jpeg

N

Y

N

N

lossy data compression

FITS

fts

Y

N

Y

N

common file format in astronomy

LSTFAST

lsx/lst

Y

Y

Y

Y

ASCII file contains a list of image file names