Writing this book, and collecting the voluminous material that is included on the CD-ROM, was a huge effort made possible only by the extraordinary generosity and common sense of a great many people. When we set out to collect the vast set of file format specifications in common use today, we frankly expected to be able to persuade only a small fraction of the specification owners and vendors that contributing them freely to this effort would be a good idea for them. We were convinced that it was a good idea, of course, but given the practicalities of bureaucracy, competition, and the many demands on people's time, we were not optimistic about conveying that conviction to others in the graphics community.
It was not an easy effort, and sometimes we nagged, wheedled, and otherwise made nuisances of ourselves, but people came through for us in the most remarkable way. To all those who contributed specifications, images, and their expertise to this effort, thank you. We hope it pays off by increasing the general awareness of people in the market and by substantially reducing the number of support calls to those who maintain the file formats. We have tried to list all those who helped us, but there were so many over such a long period of time that we are bound to leave a few names off the list. Don't be shy about reminding us; we'll include your names next time. To all those listed and unlisted, please accept our thanks.
Individuals who helped us obtain and understand specifications include the following: Keith Alexander, Chris Allis, Jim Anderson, Tony Apodaca, Jim Atkinson, Ron Baalke, David Baggett, Dan Baker, Cindy Batz, Gavin Bell, Steve Belsky, Celia Booher, Kim Bovic, Neil Bowers, John Bridges, Richard Brownback, Rikk Carey, Steve Carlsen, Timothy Casey, Wesley Chalfant, Buckley Collum, Freda Cooke, Catherine Copetas, António Costa, Stephen Coy, John Cristy, William Darnall, Ray Davis, Tom Davis, Bob Deen, Michael Dillon, Shannon Donovan, John Edwards, Jerry Evans, Lee Fisher, Jim Fister, Chad Fogg, Michael Folk, Roger Fujii, Jean-loup Gailly, Gary Goelhoeft, Bob Gonsales, Debby Gordon, Hank Gracin, Joy Gregory, Scott Gross, Hadmut, Paul Haeberli, Eric Haines, Eric Hamilton, Kory Hamzeh, William Hanlon, Fred Hansen, Paul Harker, Chris Hecker, Bill Hibbard, Michael Hoffman, Steve Hollasch, Terry Ilardi, Neale Johnston, Mike Kaltschnee, Lou Katz, Jim Kent, Pam Kerwin, Craig Kolb, Steve Koren, Don Lancaster, Tom Lane, Ian Lepore, Greg Leslie, Glenn Lewis, Paul Mace, Britt Mackenzie, Mike Martin, Pat McGee, Brian Moran, Mike Muuse, JoAnn Nielson, Gail Ostrow, Joan Patterson, Jeff Parker, Brian Paul, Brad Pillow, Andrew Plotkin, Jef Poskanzer, John Rasure, Dave Ratcliffe, Jim Rose, Randi Rost, Carroll Rotkel, Stacie Saccomanno, Jim Saghir, Barry Schlesinger, Louis Shay, Bill Shotts, Rik Segal, Mark Skiba, Scott St. Clair, John Stackpole, Marc Stengel, Ann Sydeman, Mark Sylvester, Spencer Thomas, Mark VandeWettering, Greg Ward, Archie Warnock, David Wecker, Joel Welling, Drew Wells, Jocelyn Willett, James Winget, and Shiming Xu.
Thanks to these organizations that shared their specifications and helped us in other ways: 3D/Eye, Adobe Systems, Aldus, Andrew Consortium, Apple Computer, Autodesk, Avatar, Carnegie Mellon University, C-Cube Microsystems, Commodore Business Machines, CompuServe, Computer Associates, Digital Equipment Corporation, Digital Research, DISCUS, DuPont, IBM, Inset Systems, Intel Corporation, ISEP/INESC, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Khoral Research, Kofax Image Products, Kubota Pacific Computer, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Media Cybernetics, Metron Computerware, Microsoft, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Center for Supercomputer Applications, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Novell, Paul Mace Software, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Pixar, Princeton University Department of Computer Science, RIX SoftWorks, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Time Arts, Truevision, University of Illinois, University of Utah Department of Computer Science, University of Wisconsin at Madison, U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Wavefront Technologies, X Consortium, and ZSoft.
Very special thanks to those who read the manuscript of this book and made thoughtful and helpful comments on the content and organization: Dr. Peter Bono, Jim Frost, Tom Gaskins, Lofton Henderson, Dr. Tom Lane, Tim O'Reilly, Sam Leffler, Dr. Anne Mumford, and Archie Warnock. Double thanks to Lofton Henderson, who prepared CGM images for us under a tight deadline, and to Tom Lane, who reviewed the CD-ROM as well. We could not have done this without you!
Many thanks to Shari L.S. Worthington, who let us include in this book many of the Internet resources she compiled for her article, "Imaging on the Internet: Scientific/Industrial Resources" in Advanced Imaging, February 1994.
We are very grateful to those who contributed software that will allow you to convert, view, manipulate, and otherwise make sense of the many file formats described in this book. We could not include all of these packages on the CD-ROM (for this version, at least), but we appreciate very much your generosity. Thanks to these individuals: Dan Baker, Robert Becker, Alexey Bobkov, John Bradley, Mike Castle, John Cristy, Orlando Dare, D.J. Delorie, Guiseppe Desoli, Chris Drouin, Stefan Eckart, Mark Edmead, Chad Fogg, Oliver Fromme, Mike Fitzpatrick, Jim Frost, Aaron Giles, Graeme Gill, Maynard Handley, Jih-Shin Ho, Robert Holland, David Holliday, Allen Kempe, Andrew Key, Michail Kutzetsov, Tom Lane, Sam Leffler, Thorsten Lemke, Leonardo Loureiro, Eric Mandel, Michael Mauldin, Frank McKenney, Kevin Mitchell, Bob Montgomery, David Ottoson, Jef Poskanzer, Igor Plotnikov, Eric Praetzel, Wayne Rasband, Mohammed Ali Rezaei, Rich Siegel, Davide Rossi, Y. Shan, Doug Tody, Robert Voit, Archie Warnock, Ken Yee, Norman Yee, and Paul Yoshimune. And thanks to these organizations: Alchemy Mindworks, Bare Bones Software, Carnegie Mellon University, CenterLine Software, Express Compression Labs, DareWare, Goddard Space Center, Handmade Software, Honeywell Technology Center, Independent JPEG Group, Labtam Australia Pty Ltd, MTE Industries, National Institutes of Health, National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Peepworks, PixelVision Software, Phase II Electronics, Stoik Ltd, TBH-SoftWorx, University of Waterloo. Special thanks to Rich Siegel and Leonard Rosenthal, who offered the use of their BBEdit and Stuffit products, as well as their knowledge of the Macintosh.
Many, many thanks to all the good people at O'Reilly & Associates who made this book happen: to our editor, Debby Russell, who guided this effort from beginning to end; to Gigi Estabrook, who tirelessly collected permissions and documents from the many vendors; to Ellen Siever who as production manager got an enormous book out under incredible time pressure; to Nicole Gipson, Jessica Hekman, Mary Anne Weeks Mayo, Kismet McDonough, Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary, and Stephen Spainhour who worked on the production team; to Chris Tong, who produced the index; and to Chris Reilley, who created the figures. Special thanks to Len Muellner and Norm Walsh who spent many long hours developing tools, filters, and magical potions that tamed the SGML beast.
We are also very grateful to those who produced the CD-ROM: to Debby Russell, who headed up the effort; to Terry Allen, who converted and otherwise beat the files into submission; to Norm Walsh and Jeff Robbins, who lent their expertise in PC and Macintosh environments; and to Dale Dougherty, Lar Kaufman, Linda Mui, Tim O'Reilly, Eric Pearce, and Ron Petrusha, who all contributed their knowledge of CD-ROM technology, their experiences with other projects, and their opinions about how we ought to proceed. Thanks to Jeff Moskow and Ready-to-Run Software, who did the final CD-ROM development for us.
A special thank you to P.J. Mead Books & Coffee of Orange, California, where James D. Murray sought caffeine and solace during the long days and nights of writing and revising the first edition of this book.
Many people helped us to prepare this second edition of the book. We are grateful to those who helped us to update information on the file formats included in the original edition: David Baggett, Greg Broiles, Antonio Costa, Mike Fitzpatrick, Eric Haines, Lofton Henderson, Dale Holt, Tom Lane, Glenn Lewis, David Spoelstra, Greg Ward, Joel Welling, and Ann Marie Zanger,
We are also grateful to those who helped us acquire new file format specifications and sample code and images: David Charlap, Jennifer Cohan, Andreas Dilger, Jon Erikson, Matt Foster, Greg Gilley, Bert Greevenbosch, Eric Hamilton, Jaromir Krejci, Tom Lane, Ken Lunde, Jonathan Nimer, Jolyon Ralph, Glenn Randers-Pehrson, Greg Roelofs, Hal Stern, and Ernie Wright,
Thanks to those who reviewed chapters and sections for us during the preparation of this book: David Charlap, John Foust, Eric Hamilton, Simson Garfinkel, Bert Greevenbosch, Tom Lane, Jamomir Krejci, Andreas Dilger, Glenn Randers-Pehrson, Greg Roelofs, Jolyon Ralph, Gene Spafford, and Ernie Wright,
John Foust also helped in the writing of several of the file format articles.
Thanks also to Nathan Cass and Mark Starr of Unisys who helped us to understand the complexities of the Unisys/CompuServe/LZW patent issue; to John Dockery who did online CompuServe and AOL research for us; and to Paula Ferguson and Andrew Schulman of ORA who advised us about certain formats.
Special thanks to those who reviewed the product and the CD-ROM at various stages: Lee Estrin, Kerrie Kennedy, and Mike Kaltschnee. And thanks to Ken DeCanio, who did the Macintosh software development for us.
We are grateful to the many software authors who allowed us to include their packages on the new version of the CD-ROM. Mark Adler, Daniel Baker, Sean Barger, John Bradley, Ken Carlino, Bill Cotton, John Cristy, Lee Daniel Crocker, Stefan Eckart, Debbie Eddy, Michael Fitzpatrick, R. Mark Fleming, Chad Fogg, Martin Fong, Oliver Fromme, Jim Frost, Jean-loup Gailly, Gary Gehman, Aaron Giles, Graeme Gill, Ed Hamrick, Maynard Handley, Paul Ho, Gareth Hunt, Peter Lerup, Chris Komnic, Markus Kuhn, Andreas Lampen, David Lane, Tom Lane, Sam Leffler, Alexander Lehmann, Thorsten Lemke, Andreas Ley, Leonardo Hadddad Loureiro, Michael Mauldin, Kelly McKiernan, Douglas Mink, Kevin Mitchell, John Montbriand, Bob Montgomery, Joe Oliphant, Yves Piguet, Igor Plotnikov, Jef Poskanzer, Wayne Rasband, Steve Rimmer, Keith Rule, Jonathan Schafer, Guy Eric Schalnat, Paul Schmidt, David Schooley, Shiva Shenoy, Eric Toonen, Willem A.J. van Schaik, Archibald Warnock, Kevin Woolley, Ken Yee, and Norman Yee.
And thanks to the organizations that helped us in various ways to acquire or review specs, supply software, and otherwise move this project along: 3D/Eye, Adobe, Advance Enterprises, Alchemy Mindworks, Anagrafyxx Software, Andrew Consortium, Artemis Software, AUI/NRAO, Beyond Midnight Software, Boxtop Software, Dr. Dobb's Journal, Equilibrium, Group 42, Hamrick Software, HyperAct, Inset, i2 Technologies, ISEP/INESC, JASC Inc., Kamyan Software, Lemke Software, Magic Bullet Communications, Mmedia Research Corporation, National Institutes of Health, NOAO/IRAF, Photodex, Piclab, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Quarterdeck, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Spyglass, St. Mary's University, Sun Microsystems, Sverdlup Technology, TrueVision, Ulead Systems, Unisys, Woolleysoft, and Zoner.
And, once again, all our thanks to the people at O'Reilly & Associates who turned into reality the vision of making this book into a true online product: Linda Walsh, the product manager; Norm Walsh, who built the CD-ROM/Internet product; Edie Freedman, who designed the user interface and the overall look and feel of the product, as well as the book cover; Debby Russell, our editor once again; Gigi Estabrook, who wrote online text and organized the software; Sue Willing, who acquired permissions and did some writing as well; Sheryl Avruch, the keeper of the schedule and the director of production; David Futato, the production manager for the book; Nancy Priest, who designed the interior format; Chris Reilley, who did the figures; and Seth Maislin, who produced the index.
Finally,
This book is dedicated to my son, James Alexander Ozbirn Murray, and his mother, Katherine. James D. Murray
To all sentient beings working with graphics file formats. William vanRyper
Copyright © 1996, 1994 O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
