Best image format

[abhishek]

Hello friends,
I am doing a project on image processing. Can you please tell me which image format is best for image processing in terms of speed of processing and memory requirement.


Regards,
Abhishek Singh

[Shadowman]

Hello friends,
I am doing a project on image processing. Can you please tell me which image format is best for image processing in terms of speed of processing and memory requirement.
Regards,
Abhishek Singh

Right out of the camera you are limited to RAW and jpeg. I suppose if you can find one that saves as a TIFF that would be optimal for post processing, speed, and storage size.

[abhishek]

Right out of the camera you are limited to RAW and jpeg. I suppose if you can find one that saves as a TIFF that would be optimal for post processing, speed, and storage size.

But i have somewhere read that TIFF takes large memory space. And what if i use BMP file format for post processing. Since it store data in binary value, so editing of image with binary value will be easier than processing RGB value for the same pixel.

[vladimir]

Can you please tell me which image format is best for image processing in terms of speed of processing and memory requirement.

I can't.
Here is why:
1. You probably want to add at least one more "term" to your terms: quality of the processing. Or at least specify what "processing" even means. At extreme - you can reduce your image to 1 byte , it will contain some information about your image, and it will be really easy and fast to process, right? But it's probably not the kind of processing you are looking for.
2. Now, your 3 terms (speed, quality and size) will all be interrelated: as size goes down, quality goes down, speed goes up, etc... and you need to define what "best" means.

And then you can go, for example, here: http://www.acasystems.com/en/web-thu...age-format.htm
or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats
and decide which format is "the best" based on your criteria.

[Dave Humphries]

But i have somewhere read that TIFF takes large memory space. And what if i use BMP file format for post processing. Since it store data in binary value, so editing of image with binary value will be easier than processing RGB value for the same pixel.

You're worrrying about things that are barely relevant Abhishek.

I'd suggest BMP is the last image format you'd want to use.

Just get a camera and an editing program and use their default file formats.
As has been said, that's going to be RAW or jpg from the camera.
PSD, DNG, TIF and JPG from the editing program.

Tiff can get big if you save with layers part way through processing, but for final output, you'll almost certainly be producing a jpg for online use, or printing, anyway (not the same file for each of those though).

Cheers,

[abhishek]

I can't.
Here is why:
1. You probably want to add at least one more "term" to your terms: quality of the processing. Or at least specify what "processing" even means. At extreme - you can reduce your image to 1 byte , it will contain some information about your image, and it will be really easy and fast to process, right? But it's probably not the kind of processing you are looking for.
2. Now, your 3 terms (speed, quality and size) will all be interrelated: as size goes down, quality goes down, speed goes up, etc... and you need to define what "best" means.

And then you can go, for example, here: http://www.acasystems.com/en/web-thu...age-format.htm
or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats
and decide which format is "the best" based on your criteria.

In my project i am basically interested in comparing image frame by frame. I am more interested in tracking the movement of a person in a given arena. In that case quality of image is not important but speed of processing is important (as i am doing real time image processing). So depending upon this can you suggest me best image format.

[abhishek]

You're worrrying about things that are barely relevant Abhishek.

I'd suggest BMP is the last image format you'd want to use.

Just get a camera and an editing program and use their default file formats.
As has been said, that's going to be RAW or jpg from the camera.
PSD, DNG, TIF and JPG from the editing program.

Tiff can get big if you save with layers part way through processing, but for final output, you'll almost certainly be producing a jpg for online use, or printing, anyway (not the same file for each of those though).

Cheers,

In my project i am basically interested in comparing image frame by frame. I am more interested in tracking the movement of a person in a given arena. In that case quality of image is not important but speed of processing is important (as i am doing real time image processing).................. So will it work??

[vladimir]

In my project i am basically interested in comparing image frame by frame. I am more interested in tracking the movement of a person in a given arena. In that case quality of image is not important but speed of processing is important (as i am doing real time image processing). So depending upon this can you suggest me best image format.

Are you going to create those images [frame by frame] yourself, and you get to choose the format?
And in actual real time? You shouldn't be looking at image formats then, you should be looking at movie formats.
Like MPEG. Those MPEG guys figured it all out already...
But if you insist on static images - use JPEG. MPEG uses that for their static frames, I am pretty sure. And so should you. JPEG should also give you actual control over the quality, especially when it comes to turning the quality down to get the speed up.

[Dave Humphries]

In my project i am basically interested in comparing image frame by frame. I am more interested in tracking the movement of a person in a given arena. In that case quality of image is not important but speed of processing is important (as i am doing real time image processing).................. So will it work??

Ah, clearly what you mean by "image processing", and what that means to us, is vastly different

OK, maybe BMP is what you want to use

[abhishek]

Are you going to create those images [frame by frame] yourself, and you get to choose the format?
And in actual real time? You shouldn't be looking at image formats then, you should be looking at movie formats.
Like MPEG. Those MPEG guys figured it all out already...
But if you insist on static images - use JPEG. MPEG uses that for their static frames, I am pretty sure. And so should you. JPEG should also give you actual control over the quality, especially when it comes to turning the quality down to get the speed up.

Thanx for the information.
I will be extracting frames from the video. It will be a soft real time operation. Depending on location of person's hand i will command compute to take necessary action. Project is basically a interactive advertisement environment. Where person can interact with projected image using virtual tool.

[vladimir]

Thanx for the information.
I will be extracting frames from the video. It will be a soft real time operation. Depending on location of person's hand i will command compute to take necessary action. Project is basically a interactive advertisement environment. Where person can interact with projected image using virtual tool.

You are welcome , but I am still not sure why image format question is relevant to this.