ILBM
ILBM (or IFF-ILBM, or LBM) is a loosely-defined family of raster image file formats that use the IFF container format. ILBM stands for InterLeaved BitMap.
It is also sometimes called IFF or Amiga IFF, though IFF more properly refers to the generic IFF format on which ILBM is based.
As seems to be common practice, we consider ILBM to include some formats that are not actually interleaved. We exclude formats that use incompatible variants of IFF.
ILBM files were widely used on Amiga computers, but are not limited to that platform. The format originated with the Deluxe Paint program from Electronic Arts.
When "lost" computer graphics created by Andy Warhol on an Amiga computer were discovered and converted by retrocomputing buffs at the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Club in 2013, some of them were found to be in a slight variant of the ILBM format, with a .pic extension.
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Identification
The IFF chunk identifiers (ASCII strings) FORM and (usually) ILBM appear near the beginning of the file. BMHD appears later in the file, usually immediately after ILBM.
Some files do not contain an ILBM chunk, but instead contain a different chunk such as "PBM ", RGBN, or RGB8.
Special types of ILBM
The plain ILBM format is reasonably well standardized. This section describes some of the other ILBM formats.
PBM
PBM (Planar BitMap) files have a "PBM " chunk instead of an ILBM chunk, and the image data is organized differently.
This is not to be confused with Netpbm-PBM, a much more common format named PBM.
Hold-and-Modify
Hold-and-Modify (HAM) images are designed to work with the Amiga's oddball Hold-and-Modify graphics modes. There are two kinds of HAM images: HAM6 (6 bits per pixel) and HAM8 (8 bits per pixel). The term HAM sometimes refers just to HAM6.
It is usually said that HAM6 supports up to 4096 different colors in an image, and HAM8 supports 262,144. This is probably true with regard to the actual Amiga graphics modes, but some not-so-carefully-written ILBM specifications imply that more colors are possible. Not that it matters much, because the real limitation is that, for each pixel, there are at most 64 or 256 available colors.
HAM6
HAM6 files have bit 11 of the CAMG chunk set, 6 planes (rarely 5), and 16 palette colors.
Reportedly, some HAM6 files are missing the CAMG chunk. A file with no CAMG chunk, 6 bit planes, and 16 palette colors is probably HAM6.
HAM8
HAM8 files have bit 11 of the CAMG chunk set, 8 planes (rarely 7), and 64 palette colors.
Extra-Halfbrite
Extra-Halfbrite (EBH) images are designed to work with the Amiga's Halfbrite graphics mode. They have 6 planes, but only 32 colors in the palette. In effect, the palette should be assumed to have an additional 32 colors that are half as bright as the first 32.
Extra-Halfbrite files are identified by bit 7 of the CAMG chunk being set.
Specifications
- ILBM spec
- ModdingWiki: LBM Format
- Picture format docs (of a number of formats including DeluxePaint LBM/IFF)
- FORM RGBN and FORM RGB8
Software
It is possible that there is no single application that does a good job of decoding the full range of ILBM formats. More research is needed here.
Sample files
- ftp://ftp.back2roots.org/pub/amigascne/Gfx/pics/
- http://cd.textfiles.com/zoom2/graphics/clipart/ ...
- http://cd.textfiles.com/megamedia1/ .../*.IFF
- http://cd.textfiles.com/megamedia2/IMAGES/CARS/IFF24/
- http://samples.libav.org/image-samples/ASH.LBM - a PBM file
- http://www.fileformat.info/format/iff/sample/index.htm
Links
- Wikipedia: ILBM
- Intro to Amiga IFF ILBM Files and Amiga Viewmodes
- IFF File Format Summary, from the Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats
- Wikipedia: Hold-And-Modify
- Wikipedia: Amiga Halfbrite mode
- Ralf Steines' (unreleased?) ilbmtoppm - manpage has useful information
- Previously Unknown Warhol Works Discovered on Floppy Disks from 1985
- Detailed report on the Warhol graphic recovery (PDF)
