Chapter 6 Image files

A particular class of binary files are those representing images, and a not uncommon request is to read such a file into R as a matrix.

There are many formats for image files (most with lots of variants), and it may be necessary to use external conversion software to first convert the image into one of the formats for which a package currently provides an R reader. A versatile example of such software is ImageMagick and its fork GraphicsMagick. These provide command-line programs convert and gm convert to convert images from one format to another: what formats they can input is determined when they are compiled, and the supported formats can be listed by e.g. convert -list format.

Package pixmap has a function read.pnm to read ‘portable anymap’ images in PBM (black/white), PGM (grey) and PPM (RGB colour) formats. These are also known as ‘netpbm’ formats.

Packages bmp, jpeg and png read the formats after which they are named. See also packages biOps and Momocs, and Bioconductor package EBImage.

TIFF is more a meta-format, a wrapper within which a very large variety of image formats can be embedded. Packages rtiff and tiff can read some of the sub-formats (depending on the external libtiff software against which they are compiled). There some facilities for specialized sub-formats, for example in Bioconductor package beadarray.

Raster files are common in the geographical sciences, and package rgdal provides an interface to GDAL which provides some facilities of its own to read raster files and links to many others. Which formats it supports is determined when GDAL is compiled: use gdalDrivers() to see what these are for the build you are using. It can be useful for uncommon formats such as JPEG 2000 (which is a different format from JPEG, and not currently supported in the macOS nor Windows binary versions of rgdal).

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