IMAGING GLOSSARY

BMP (file format extension)

The Microsoft Windows Bitmap is widely supported and documented. It is one of several file formats supported by Windows and has become a PC standard, appearing in nearly all applications that support graphics. There are four versions of the BMP format, two for Windows: supporting Windows versions 1.x and 2.x, and two for OS/2: supporting OS/2 versions 1.x and 2.x, 3.x (for Windows 3.x and NT). Microsoft’s involvement with IBM in the development of the OS/2 operating system precipitated the BMP’s support for OS/2.

When it was first developed, the BitMaP format was device-dependent to cater to the popular IBM PC graphics cards. Later, when it was released as a device-independent format, it was referred to as a DIB (device-independent bitmap). Now, any Windows bitmap is assumed to be in DIB format.

The BMP image data can be uncompressed, or compressed using an RLE scheme. This compression scheme is not very effective for images with a wide range of colors. This type of image may increase in size during compression.

Imaging Categories:

• Acquisition
• Display
• Transformations
• Image Processing
• Color Processing
• Recognition
• File Format Support

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