Sustainability of Digital Formats
Planning for Library of Congress Collections
Sustainability of Digital Formats
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| Introduction | Sustainability Factors | Content Categories | Format Descriptions | Contact | |
| Full name | Information technology -- Computer graphics and image processing -- Image Processing and Interchange (IPI) -- Functional specification -- Part 5: Basic Image Interchange Format (BIIF) |
| Description | A wrapper for imagery and other forms of content developed to serve military and intelligence-agency interoperability (see history Notes below). The format can wrap up to 999 images and symbols in a single file; a typical example (text and graphics layered over raster image) is presented as figure 3 in Bernadette Kuzma's 1999 update. |
| Production phase | Used for content in the middle and final state. |
| Relationship to other formats | |
| May contain | Image data of various types; see Notes below |
| May contain | CGM, Computer Graphic Metafile |
| May contain | Text data; see Notes below |
| LC experience or existing holdings | None |
| LC preference | None |
| Disclosure | Open standard. Developed by ISO technical program JTC 1/SC 24. |
| Documentation | ISO/IEC 12087-5:1998 (with corrigenda in 2001 and 2002). Information technology -- Computer graphics and image processing -- Image Processing and Interchange (IPI) -- Functional specification -- Part 5: Basic Image Interchange Format (BIIF) |
| Adoption | Appears to be used by the military. Listed by the National Archives and Records Administration as an accepted format for scanned images of textual records. |
| Licensing and patent claims | Not investigated at this time. |
| Transparency | The wrapper is transparent; contained data varies. |
| Self-documentation | Header describes the structure of the file. The specification defines Tagged Record Extensions that may be used for data (a) about people, buildings, places, landmarks, equipment, or other objects that may appear in the image; (b) to allow correlation of information among multiple images and annotations within in BIIF file; (c) about the equipment settings used to obtain the digital image, xray, etc.; and (d) data to allow geopositioning of items in the imagery or measurement of distances of items in the imagery. |
| External dependencies | None |
| Technical protection considerations | Not investigated at this time. |
| Normal rendering | Supported. |
| Clarity (support for high image resolution) | Depends upon the types of image data contained in the file. |
| Color maintenance | No particular elements indicated in specification; Comments welcome. |
| Support for graphic effects and typography | CGM, vector graphics, and text are supported. |
| Functionality beyond normal image rendering | Not investigated. |
| Tag type | Value | Note |
| Filename Extension | None found; Comments welcome | |
| Magic numbers | None found; Comments welcome |
| General | Bernadette Kuzma's 1999 update reports on the components of a BIIF file, beginning with the BIIF File Header. The header is "a basic description of this file. Including how many of each subcomponent exist. For each subcomponent a pair of numbers is given indicating how many bytes the subheader for it is and how bytes of data are associated with it." Kuzma continues, "For each of the remaining segments there is a subheader that describes the individual segment and the actual data associated with it: • Image Segments: The data can be stored in various interleave patterns. Monochrome, color, multispectral and hyperspectral data can be included. The data can also be compressed. The standard allows for each image within the file to be compressed. Currently, bi-level, JPEG and vector quantization (VQ) are the supported compression methods. The same compression does not need to be applied to all images in a given file. • Symbol Segments: Symbols are stored as computer graphic metafiles (CGMs). • Text Segments: The data in these segments are not part of the composite picture that results from displaying a BIIF file. They are text attachments that are associated with the file. • Remaining segments: Allows for extensibility of the format." |
| History | Bernadette Kuzma's 1999 update sketches the history: "During the Grenada conflict [1983], it became apparent that . . . there was no way to share imagery between systems. Interoperability just wasn't there. There were numerous tools for creating, distributing and viewing imagery; however interoperability had not been considered. . . . Several folks got together and fashioned . . . the National Imagery Transmission Format (NITF). Version 1.0 of the standard was not fielded, but approved as a demonstration capability. In 1984, the NITF Technical Board was formed. This organization consisted of representatives from each service and the Intel community. . . . The Joint Interoperability Test Center was tasked with ensuring that systems conformed to the standard. The first system was certified in 1988. "The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) was responsible for making NITF 1.1 a military standard. By 1991 all the services were complying with the standard. . . . Work on version 2.0 of the standard started in 1992. . . . [In 1995,] the National Committee for Information Technology Standards agreed it was within their purview to convert NITF from a military standard to an international standard. Work began on the Basic Imagery Interchange Format (BIIF). Simultaneously, work was started on NITF 2.1. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secondary Imagery Format (STANAG 4545, NSIF) was developed at the same time." Development of ISO/IEC 12087-5 began in 1995 and, in 1998, this international standard was approved. Some additional historical information is included in a 2002 presentation from the Arnold, Missouri, Bandwidth Compression Symposium. |
URLs
Print
• ISO/IEC 12087-5:1998 (with corrigenda in 2001 and 2002). Information technology -- Computer graphics and image processing -- Image Processing and Interchange (IPI) -- Functional specification -- Part 5: Basic Image Interchange Format (BIIF)
URLs
• 1996 update by Steve
Carson (http://www.acm.org/tsc/biif.html)
• 1999
update by Bernadette Kuzma (http://old.siggraph.org/publications/newsletter/v33n2/columns/carson.html)
• 2002 NITFS presentation
from the Arnold, Missouri, Bandwidth Compression Symposium (http://164.214.2.51/ntb/2002SICS/02NITFhist.PDF)
• Accepted
formats for scanned images of textual records from the National Archives
and Records Administration (http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/initiatives/scanned-textual.html)
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