Truevision Targa file format - Definition and Overview

Truevision TGA is a raster graphics file format. It was the native format of Truevision Inc.'s TARGA boards, which were some of the first graphic cards for IBM-compatible PCs to support truecolor display.

TGA files commonly have the extension ".tga" and can store image data with 1–32 bits of precision per pixel. Color data can be color-mapped, or in directcolor or truecolor format; optionally, a lossless RLE compression can be employed.

The TGA file format was originally defined by Truevision Inc. in 1984. Several enhancements such as "postage stamps" (better known as thumbnails), an alpha channel, gamma value, and textual metadata were introduced in 1989.

External link

• Truevision's TGA file format specification (http://www.gamers.org/dEngine/quake3/TGA.ps.gz)
• Truevision's TGA file format specification (http://www.gamers.org/dEngine/quake3/TGAtoc.ps.gz) - cover pages and table of contents
• TGA specification (http://www.gamers.org/dEngine/quake3/TGA.txt) - previous version of the file format taken from the Truevision Technical Guide
• Creating TGA Image files (http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/dataformats/tga/) - a description of the TGA format