Question

What image file formats are supported by the uScope?

Answer

The uScope Navigator supports a wide variety of image file formats. Images are created at numerous places in the uScope Navigator workflow. So, it's important to make a distinction of what image files are supported and where in the application they are supported.

Browsed or Scanned Image Fields

When browsing a slide or scanning a region of interest, you can save fields as JPEG or PNG image files.

• JPEG images are saved with a quality of 90. They provide a high-quality image that is compressed. This is the best compromise between image quality and file size.
• PNG images are saved using lossless compression. They are significantly larger than JPEG files but no image data is lost by the compression technique used.

A setup option lets you select whether fields are saved as JPEG or PNG files. Refer to the following knowledge base article for more information:

• Changing Image Format for Scanned Fields

Whole Scan (Large, Composite) Images

uScope Navigator creates whole scan images by combining the individual fields from a scanned region. Several different types of image sets may be created:

• A Deep Zoom Image (Open Seadragon) is a large, pyramidal image set created in a folder structure that includes XML files (where meta data are stored), JPEG or PNG files for each level of the pyramid, and several images of the scanned region and slide overview.
• An SVS Image File (Tiled TIFF) is an individual file format that contains only a few levels of the image pyramid and an overview image of the slide.
• An SZI Image File (EasyZoom) is a single file that encapsulates an entire Deep Zoom image. It is primarily used by the EasyZoom viewer.

Note
Tiled TIFF (SVS Image File Format) and EasyZoom (SZI Image File Format) are supported in uScope Navigator v4.3 and later.

A setup option lets you select the default whole scan format(s) to generate after scanning a slide. In addition, you can change these on a case-by-case basis when scanning. Refer to the following knowledge base article for more information:

• What whole scan image formats are supported?

Exported Regions of Interest

When viewing a Deep Zoom image using the uScope Navigator Viewer, you may select and export smaller regions of your scanned image. The following image file formats may be exported:

• BMP images are the standard Windows Bitmap image file. This image file format is lossless.
• PNG images are portable network graphics files. This image file format is compressed and lossless.
• JPG images are compressed image files.
• TIFF images are saved using a lossless compression technique.

These file formats provide the greatest flexibility in publication image output. Refer to the following knowledge base article for more information:

• Exporting a Region from a Deep Zoom Image