Session Digital Archiving Through OpenEXR
PresenterFlorian Kainz
Industrial Light and Magic

ABSTRACT

OpenEXR is a high-dynamic-range image file format that was originally created for digital visual effects production. The file format has been designed to represent images from a variety of sources (film, digital cameras, computer graphics, etc.) as faithfully as possible, without compromising on image quality and without requiring excessive amounts of storage. The format is reliable and has been tested extensively in production on millions of image files.

In 2003, after validating OpenEXR by using it extensively in production, ILM released the new format as open-source. The format is free and the source code is publicly available, under a royalty-free license that allows integrating OpenEXR into commercial and open-source software. This presentation will discuss the attributes that, while specific to OpenEXR - floating point pixel data, lossless data compression, image channels that extend beyond RGB, attributes in the file header for storing image information, simple implementation as C++ library - should make this file format a suitable option for archiving images digitally.

SPEAKER BIO

Florian Kainz joined Industrial Light & Magic in 1995 as a member of the research and development group. In his current role of computer graphics principal engineer, he leads the team that is responsible for the core architecture of ILM's in-house computer animation system. Kainz is one of the authors of the OpenEXR file format.

Before joining ILM, Kainz worked as a software engineer for Steiner-Film in Munich, Germany and for Twenty-Five Frames in Singapore, writing image processing and 3D rendering software. He received a degree in computer science in 1992, from the Technical University in Munich, Germany.