vqfile − probe an image file for basic properties

vqfile [if=<infile>] [-a ] [-p ] [-s ] [-np] [-iw ] [-v ] [of=<output file> ]

Vqfile examines an image file and returns a text description of some of the image file properties. This utility program is used by a number of commands for identifying and characterizing image files. For each image vqfile, by default, provides a Vqfile ouputs information for the file types in three broad categories: images, text files and other binary files. If a directory is specified then vqfile is run on all files in that directory.

Known image files types are: visionx, DICOM, PBM, JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF.

Known text files are: visionx, scripts, generic.

Files that are not recognized as images or text files are considered generic binary files.

Known files for vqfile are limited. The test for text files checks the amount of ASCII characters in the first 200 bytes; text using unicode encodings might be considered binary.

if=

Specifies the input file. if a directory is specified then vqfile is run on every file in that directory and precedes each response with the image file name.

of=

Specifies the output file for the text description

-iw

provide extensive image property information in wish format

-q

provide simply formated main image property information This output is mainly designed to support the simba web system but is also good for interactive use. Properties output include format, image size, pixel-type and resolution (if known).

-s

report the image size if possible. Only the firs two dimensions are listed

-p

The input file is stdin. This does not work for all image formats.

-np

report the image size for piped netpbm

-v

verbose flag

When the -iw option is specified the set of variables that are always present is:

fm, format, ch, xres, yres, zres, xs, ys, zs, pname, hnum, sdate, atime, snum, anum, tsyn, errflag, errmsg, so, ippx, ippy, ippz, iss, ist, ip, ri, rs, fattr.

For most of them, see the vdcminfo man pages in the following sections for their description:

IW FLAG

ch, xres, yres, zres, xs, ys, zs, pname, hnum, sdate, atime, snum, anum, tsyn, errflag, errmsg

SW FLAG

so, ippx, ippy, ippz, iss, ist, ip, ri, rs

The values for the fm variable (equivalent to the same variable in the ouput of "vps -iw" or "vdcminfo -iw") are:

u (unsigned byte)
c (signed byte)
s (short int)
i (integer - 32-bit)
f (float)
d (double)
b (bit), and
x (index)

For VisionX files, the values for the format variable (relating them to the fm value) are as follows:

VXB

For DICOM images the value of the format variable is the DICOM modality (tag (0008,0060)).
For other images is their common format name:

GIF

For non-image files the value is

ZLF

Unique to vqfile is fattr with the following values. For images:

V

For text files, possible values are:

U

Binary files have always the Q fattr value (maybe binary), empty (zero-length) files have always the Z fattr value (zero).

A. P. Reeves, A. M. Biancardi

vdicom(1)