BMP

Revision as of 07:44, 2 March 2013

BMP is a family of simple raster graphics image file format designed to store bitmap digital images independently of a display device. BMP was originally and is primarily used on Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems. The format is sometimes known as Device-Independent Bitmap (DIB), since, when loaded into memory using Windows software, the image is held as a DIB structure.

As of November 2012, there have been 7 versions (similar but not identical of the Windows Bitmap format, identified by PRONOM as: fmt/114 (version 1.0); fmt/115 (version 2.0); fmt/116 (version 3.0); fmt/117 (version 3.0 NT); fmt/118 (version 4.0); fmt/119 (version 5.0); x-fmt/270 (OS/2 Bitmap version 2.0. See OS/2 BMP). No MIME type has been officially registered. Strings found in practice are: image/bmp; image/x-bmp; image/x-ms-bmp

Sample images

• Example BMP images (all Windows V3 except as indicated)
• BMP Suite Image List

References

• BMP (file format): Wikipedia
• Bitmap Image File (BMP), Version 5, from Library of Congress resource on Sustainability of Digital Formats
• Microsoft Windows Bitmap File Format Summary From Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats at FileFormat.Info (1996)