Portable Network Graphics

file format /ping/ (PNG) An extensible file format for the

lossless, portable, well-compressed storage of rasterimages. PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF and

can also replace many common uses of TIFF.

Indexed-colour, greyscale and truecolour images are

supported, plus an optional alpha channel. Sample depths

range from 1 to 16 bits.

PNG is designed for on-line viewing applications, such as the

World Wide Web, so it is fully streamable with a

progressive display option. PNG is robust, providing both

full file integrity checking and simple detection of common

transmission errors. Also, PNG can store gamma correction

and chromaticity data for improved colour matching on

heterogeneous platforms.

Filename extension: .png.

RFC 2083. W3C PNG pages. PNG home page.

(1997-08-07)