Huh?  What do you mean it isn't Targa?  I thought that TGA was just a
shortened version... and that the file format was called Truevision's
Targa... Or am I totally missing the mark here?  And if so, what is Targa
and why do all Targa streaming video output boards stream TGAs if they
aren't Targas?

Now I'm totally confused...

--
Lance.


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Lance Birch wrote:
> 
> Huh?  What do you mean it isn't Targa?  I thought that TGA was just a
> shortened version... and that the file format was called Truevision's
> Targa... Or am I totally missing the mark here?  And if so, what is Targa
> and why do all Targa streaming video output boards stream TGAs if they
> aren't Targas?
> 
> Now I'm totally confused...
> 
> --
> Lance.

  Please look at the graphics file formats page for the answer
to his compelling mystery. The TGA specification is incorrectly
referred to as the targa file format and this mistake is repeated
on a very large scale in the graphics industry and by arm chair
graphics format expert wanna bees (which includes most of the
computer users who use any type of graphics program).

http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/~mxr/gfx/

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

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THANKS!  Now I understand!

--
Lance.


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For the latest 3D Studio MAX plug-ins, images and much more, go to:
The Zone - http://come.to/the.zone

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Yes, I guessed something like that was the reason. However, I'm not sure why
the image should be loadable by paint programs - in most cases it will look
unintelligible. As far as I can see, hand-editing of a HF_16 TGA in a paint
program is impossible for any practical purposes.
And what about using 24/32 bit precision? These would still be valid TGA
images, the 24 bit version would not increase file size and could also be
read as a 16 bit HF (if a program doesn't support 24 bit precision but can
recognize the image as a HF). Which brings me to the question: what
identifies the file as a HF_16 TGA? Surely not only the fact that the blue
channel is empty?

Margus

Alexander Enzmann wrote:
> 
> A reasonable question, with (I hope) a reasonable answer.
> 
> At the time I added 16 bit HF support for TGA images, I wanted to be
> able to load the images into viewer programs (this is something like 5-7
> years ago and PICLAB, CSHOW, etc were about the best around for use
> hobbyists).  16 grey isn't a valid form of TGA file (well, at least it
> wasn't considered so by the Truevision engineer I was corresponding with
> and no image programs would load it if you put 16 bits into a grey
> pixel).  So, I decided that I'd plonk the bits into the red and green
> channels of a 24 bit color image.
> 
> Note, if you look at the TGA file format specification (yes it is TGA,
> not Targa), you could interpret the use of field 3 and field 5.5 to mean
> that you can have 16 bit per pixel greyscale images (24 and 32 too).
> Most programs have problems with that.  Just like many programs have a
> problem with the use of a non-zero value in field 1.
> 
> Xander

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