scope:

This part of ISO/IEC 120S7 facilitates the interchange of digital images. For this purpose. conceptual, architectural. and functional definitions of the Image Interchange Pacility OPI-lIPJ arc established. ISO/IEC 12087-3 consists of two major parts. the:

a) lIP data format (I1F-DF) definition (by means of a fOllllal syntax. described according to the Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.!) -- refer to clause 5), and the

b) IIF Gateway definition (by means of a manual page description of the functionality of an Application Program Interface (API) -- refer to clause 7).

An IPI-IIF-eonformant implementation has to fulfill the functionality specification of the [IF Gateway, as outlined in clause 7. Besides the IIF Gateway, there may be infomlation processing systems (software such as parsers, generators, etc.) which read and/or write the IIF-DF.

The IPI-IIF is based on the definitions described in ISO/lEe 120S7-1. the "Common Architecture for Imaging". The IPl-IIF, as a whole, may be characterized brict1y as follows:

c) By means of the IIF data fomlat and Gateway, image data objects and image-related data objects are transported to and from application environments.

d) By means of the full PIKS profile of the IPI-I1F data format (i.e., a fomlat for data interchange between IPI-IIF and IPI-PIKS), image data objects and image-related data objects arc imported to and exported from the Programmer's Imaging Kernel System (IPI-PIKS), defined in ISO/IEC 12087-2.

e) The IPI-IIF facilitates the storage of image data objects and image-related data objects in a variety of pre-defined storage modalities, including different periodicity organizations, such as pixelinterleaving or band-interleaving.

f) This part of ISO/IEC 120S7 defines syntax of image data (and image-related data) streams. The encoding of UF data types is defined in ISO/IEC 12089. See also 5.3.3.

g) TIle IPI-IlF supports a concept of standardized conformance profiles. Initially, three confomlance profiles are defined within ISO/lEe 12087.

h) An lIF data stream may be stored in devices such as file systems. An IIF data stream may be interchanged and communicated in data networks (e.g., LANs and WANs) or in other data communication facilities. All low-level data storage and transfer is delegated, for instance, to the operating system of the target hardware.

i) The IIF Gateway performs compression and decompression of image data objects using standardized compression and decompression techniques. These techniques are referenced in this part ofISO/IEC 12087. See 1.4.5 and 5.3.3 and 7.5 for further definition.

j) The IIF Gateway is accessible via an API to perfonn image interchange functions. See clause 7 for a definition of IIF Gateway functionality.

Reference shall be made to this part of ISOIIEC 12087, and its definitions shall be employed, whenever images are interchanged, according to the IPI-IIF, among different imaging applications environments or among imaging devices. The IPI-IIF is applicable to scenarios requiring the interchange of digital images, as outlined in Annex C.

The use of the lIP data fonnat as a superset of the functionality of most of the existing image interchange fonnats solves the problem of application-independent syntactical and semantical interpretation and understanding of image data.

The IPI-IIF is applicable to image interchange in and among different application domains. The following application areas have been considered:

- Medical imaging

- Remote sensing

- Publishing

- Industrial vision

- Computer graphics arts

- Computer animation

- Scientific visualization

- Mission planning

- Document processing

- Outdoor scene surveillance

The limiting of the IPI-IIF scope to certain application domains is a matter of profiling. This is treated in clause 6. 2

NOTE - Whether an image interchange format may also be regarded as a device format, depends on the (Iocal) processing power of the device itself. Thus a conceptually "high-level" format which has become an industrial standard page description language for desktop electronic publishing, can be regarded as a device format. The IPIIIF may well be considered a device format if, for instance, there is an IPI-IIF-compatible printer which is able to receive, process, and hardcopy an image according to the IPI-lIF. In the same sense, it is reasonable to design IPIIIF- compatible image sources, e.g. IPI-IIF camera systems.