.tga file viewer

[ADJB]

Can somebody recommend a file viewer for the .tga files produced in the SCS save directory.

Don't mind if its windows or *nix based but I would prefer opensource if possible.

Everything I have tried (including gimp) just gives an invalid file type error.

This isn't important enough for me to buy a program and all I need is a viewer rather than an editor.

Many thanks in advance.

ADJB

[tobing]

Check your gimp installation. It should be able to display and edit tga files. Otherwise, recommended viewer is IrfanView.

[ADJB]

Thanks for the reply but Irfanview doesn't work either.

It complains the .tga file is "a DDS file with the incorrect extension ! Rename?"

If I allow it to do the rename it then fails with a decode error.

My gimp setup is fine and its my default app for working with targa files, it opens other .tga files with no complaint.

It's what appears to be the non standard nature of the SCS targa files that is giving me grief.

[Manni]

Originally Posted by ADJB

Can somebody recommend a file viewer for the .tga files produced in the SCS save directory.

Yes.............XnView can open .tga (Truevison Targa)

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enhome.html

at the page look at the left for the "formats" ............

[ADJB]

Excellent, XnView appears to work. Thanks for that.

This begs the question why do the other programs object so much to such a standard file format?

[Manni]

Hello ADJB

.tga is certainly NOT some standard file format but a format very seldom in use like so many others which XnView can handle.

It is an amazing tool! I have been using it for at least 8 years. It was the only one to open "exotic" file-formats which MOST other viewers can`t.

And on top of all it`s free!

[tobing]

My IrfanView shows the tga files fine, and it also shows the DDS files if you DON'T rename them. It may be that you need one of the IrfanView plugins to have that work, I have the standard plugin package installed.

IrfanView is free as XnView is, which is the other recommended tool.

TGA is a standard file format, which in contrast to BMP for example supports an alpha channel. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truevision_TGA for a detailed explanation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truevision_TGA for the german version.

The non-minimap TGA files produced by SCS are certainly NOT conform to the standard definition of TGA files, hard to understand why they are renamed to TGA if they aren't proper TGA files.

[ADJB]

Originally Posted by tobing

The non-minimap TGA files produced by SCS are certainly NOT conform to the standard definition of TGA files, hard to understand why they are renamed to TGA if they aren't proper TGA files.

I agree. .tga files are most defiantly a well established file format which I have been using for many years, mostly for use in CAD programs. It is a very old standard which has fallen out of common use mostly I assume because of the more advanced graphic cards and the rise of .jpg, .bmp and other similar formats. Also the fact that it wasn't really designed for todays far higher resolutions doesn't help its cause. As a VGA or SVGA resolution format in early "IBM PC's" it was a very common standard.

[tobing]

Originally Posted by ADJB

It is a very old standard which has fallen out of common use mostly I assume because of the more advanced graphic cards and the rise of .jpg, .bmp and other similar formats. Also the fact that it wasn't really designed for todays far higher resolutions doesn't help its cause.

The main reason to replace TGA (or BMP for that matter) was not resolution, but the fact that TGA is an uncompressed file format. Whereas JPG, GIF or PNG are compressed file formats, which need much less space on disk or bandwidth in a download. PNG is fine because it's compressed, but doesn't impose any losses on image quality. JPG is even smaller because it uses a compression algorithm that does have losses in image quality...

[ADJB]

Agreed but remember when .tga was first introduced screen resolution was normally 640 x 480 and 800 x 600 was very top end. The "only" compressed files were zip files and nobody had considered the need for compressed graphics formats at all. The internet "didn't" exist outside the military and education and business networks ran at 10meg if you were very lucky. tga is a file format from a different age which doesn't make its use now any less valid but it was a solution for its time which, unless you need a raster format, has, as you say, been surpassed by far better solutions in recent years.

However I still see no reason why TM should, if they are going to use .tga files, apparently break a very well documented industry standard file format.

[Manni]

.....and Tobing is right!

With the extra plugins-bunch Irfan View will also have tga`s.

@ADJB

tga common in CAD? How many from 100 users work with CAD or CAD/CAM ?!

[ADJB]

Originally Posted by Manni

@ADJB

tga common in CAD? How many from 100 users work with CAD or CAD/CAM ?!

As I worked as a design engineer before moving over to IT quite a few people I know run that sort of software.

However I take your point its not the sort of software you find on the average PC.

You could make the same argument about any specialised software but it doesn't make the statement wrong. For example for many years the only realistic option for serious DTP work was a Mac with pagemaker.

How many people run pagemaker who don't use it for there job? Does that make postscript files uncommon and non standard?.