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This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: ArcGIS Layer File . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. We’ve made it to the last file format!!! Last but not least is ArcGIS Layer Files. They’re a bit of a bonus 2-for-1 deal, too. Layer files store all…
This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: AppleDouble Resource Fork . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. AppleDouble……………………… Also known as “Dot underscore” files because that’s what they look like, ._likeThis . Are they related to .DS_Store files? Like,…
This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: Portable Embosser Format . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. The Portable Embosser Format (PEF) is a document type that represents braille pages in digital form, “accurately and unambiguously; regardless of…
This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: Silverlight Application Package . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. Okay, this was a fun one! If you remember using Netflix in the early-to-mid 2010s, you might remember having to download this extra thing…
This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: Apple ProRAW . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. This blog post from Lux on “Understanding ProRaw” is useful not just in what it purports to do, but as an overall explainer for how digital cameras work these…
This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: IPA . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. Like last week’s post on the Android package, the iOS App Store Package is also… (dun dun dun)… just a ZIP archive file! It’s also not really well-disclosed, with no…
This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: APK . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. First off, this work was made incredibly easier thanks to the work of Johan van der Knijff, particularly the blog series around working with mobile apps, the latest being…
This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: Apple Core Audio Format . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. Core Audio Format (CAF) is a file format for storing and transporting digital audio data. It’s published by Apple. Fully disclosed , thoroughly, with…
This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: XYZ Point Cloud . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. After a handful of difficult and technically (or socially/politically) complex formats, it was nice to work on this simple (if unspecified) format, taking me…
This blog post is part of a series on file formats research. See this introduction post for more information. Update: The official format definition is now online here: Maya Binary Scene File Format . Comments welcome directly to the Library of Congress. You know, I saved a spot for this format but it really is essentially the same as last week ’s, except stored in a binary format instead of a…