|Introduction | Sustainability Factors | Content Categories | Format Descriptions | Contact|
|Full name||Raster Product Format (RPF)|
The Raster Product Format (RPF) is a standard data structure developed in 1994 as a U.S. Military Standard for geospatial databases composed of rectangular arrays of pixel values (e.g. in digitized maps or images) in compressed or uncompressed form. Its intended use was to govern the design of a family of digital data interchange products that comprise digital maps, images, and other geographic data for military applications.
It was designed as a general, adaptable format to encompass raster products in compressed or uncompressed form. The intent was to enable application software to use the data in RPF format on computer readable interchange media (e.g. CD-ROM) directly without further manipulations or transformation. The format is characterized by a hierarchical directory structure with a table of contents file, sometimes referred to as an A.TOC file, and one or more directories of files representing frames of raster data. Optionally, lookup tables for color palettes may be stored as separate files under RPF/LOOKUP. Frames are divided into subframes (tiles). File-naming follows the 8.3 convention. The root directory is named RPF. File naming and extension conventions are documented fully in section 4.5.4 of the specification.
|Relationship to other formats|
|Affinity to||ADRG, Arc Digitized Raster Graphic. RPF was specifically intended to support interchange in a common format of ADRG raster maps and ARC Digital Raster Imagery (ADRI). ADRI is not described separately on this website.|
|LC experience or existing holdings|
|Disclosure||Unclassified United States military standard.|
Military Standard: Raster Product Format MIL-STD-2411 6 OCTOBER 1994.
Each product category representing a subtype of RPF was to be described in a separate product specification referring to the RPF standard. Supplementary documentation is in MIL-STD-2411-1, which defines registered data values to be used with RPF files and MIL-STD-2411-2, Integration of Raster Product Format Files into the National Imagery Transmission Format.
The Raster Product Format (RPF) was defined in 1994 as a format for interchange of raster data between producers of such data in DoD and users of the data, to help facilitate interoperability among mission-critical systems. Products based on RPF remain in use today. Controlled Image Base (CIB), Compressed ARC Digitized Raster Graphic (CADRG), and Digital Point Positioning Data Base (DPPDB) are three products incorporating this standard.
RPF is used for non-polar and polar raster maps transformed from DMA's ARC Digitized Raster Graphics (ADRG) maps, as specified in MIL-A-89007;imagery transformed from ARC Digital Raster Imagery (ADRI), as specified in MIL-A-89027.
The Controlled Image Base (CIB) is an RPF product. CIB started as a product called Arc Digital Raster Image (ADRI). This was a large orthomosaic and was difficult to use with the computer capacities of the times. This product was converted to a Raster Product Format (RPF) and was named CIB.
At its current 1 meter resolution, CIB is used by Mission Planners, FEMA, and in cockpit displays. CIB is considered a very important foundation based product by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGIA). Controlled Image Base and CIB are registered trademarks of NGIA. The final product can only be released to the DoD, its contractors, and other Executive Agencies supporting DoD activities.
|Licensing and patents||No known license or patent concerns for generation and use of the format. Comments welcome.|
|Technical protection considerations||The format allows for security classification as metadata, but does not appear to employ technical protection as part of the format.|
|Normal rendering||The tiled approach supports panning performance.|
|Clarity (high image resolution)||In practice, RPF-based products have specified spatial and bit-depth characterastics.|
|Support for vector graphics, including graphic effects and typography||A raster product, with no support for vector graphics or typographical effects.|
|Support for multispectral bands||
An image may be band sequential or band interleaved. An image may be band-interleaved by pixel, or by line, or by subframe. Each spatial data subsection in a frame contains one or more spectral groups; within each spectral group, each subframe may contain one or more spectral band tables; each spectral band table is composed of one or more image rows; each image row is composed of one or more spectral band lines; and each spectralband line is composed of one or more image codes.
In the band interleaved by pixel (BIP_enc) case, there will be one spectral group; within the spectral group, each subframe table will contain one spectral band table, and each image row will contain one spectral band line. Each pixel will comprise a series of data element values -- one for each spectral band represented.
In the band interleaved by line (BIL_enc) case, there will be one spectral group; within the spectral group, each subframe table will contain one and only one spectral band table, and each image row will contain multiple spectral band lines.
In the band interleaved by subframe case, there will be one spectral group; within the spectral group, each subframe table will contain multiple spectral band tables, and each image row in each spectral band table will contain one and only one spectral band line. In the case of a subframe-level band sequential RGB image, three such tables would be used -- oneeach for red, green, and blue data.
In the band sequential (BSQ_enc) case, there will be multiple spectral groups (one per band: three spectral groups in the RGB case); each subframe table within each spectral group will contain one spectral band table, and each image row will contain one spectral band line.
The specification for a given RPF-based product will specify the spectral band format of the spatial data.
|Functionality beyond normal rendering||The format is designed to support convenient replacement of a single frame file, retaining an update history, and to allow for explicitly missing data. It was also designed to be extensible, allowing for new fields and record types.|
|GIS images and datasets|
|Normal functionality||The horizontal datum for RPF data is WGS-84. The vertical datum for RPF data is defined in the individual RPF product specifications. Scale and geographical coverage for the full resource and for individual frames is recorded.|
|Support for GIS metadata||The accuracy of individual RPF-compatible data products are specified in the individual RPF product specifications.|