GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) Reader/Writer

Licensing options for this format begin with FME Desktop Professional Edition.

The GIF Reader/Writer allows FME to read and write data in GIF format.

The GIF writer writes GIF rasters, not vector features that become rasters.

Overview

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is an image format that supports a palette of up to 256 colors in the form of RGB 24 bit. The format also supports gray one-byte continuous images. The format was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has grown to be one of the dominant internet image formats.

Note: The FME GIF Reader/Writer does not support LZW compression for GIF writing due to patent issues.

The GIFRASTER writer supports the following option:

  • Generation of world file: This option will be able to force the generation of an associated Esri world file (.wld).

Reader Overview

FME considers a single GIF file to be a dataset. The GIF file contains pixel data, and each pixel in the file is a point in a single FME raster feature.

Writer Overview

FME considers a dataset to be a folder name.

FME Raster Features

FME raster features represent raster data and use several concepts that are unlike those used in the handling of vector data. See About FME Rasters.

GIF files can only be written with square pixel dimensions.

GIF only supports rasters with a single UInt8 band that has a RGB24 palette.