Image conventions

Required attributes

h5v follows the standard HDF5 image convention. A dataset must have:

  1. CLASS = "IMAGE"
  2. IMAGE_SUBCLASS = ...

Supported IMAGE_SUBCLASS values are:

  • IMAGE_GRAYSCALE
  • IMAGE_TRUECOLOR
  • IMAGE_BITMAP
  • IMAGE_INDEXED
  • IMAGE_JPEG
  • IMAGE_PNG

Interlace mode

Truecolor and indexed images also need:

  • INTERLACE_MODE = "INTERLACE_PIXEL" or
  • INTERLACE_MODE = "INTERLACE_PLANE"

If that attribute is missing for formats that require it, h5v will not treat the dataset as an inline image.

Shape expectations

Image kindExpected shapes
Grayscale[height, width] or frame-first variants such as [frames, height, width]
Bitmap[height, width]
Truecolor, pixel interlace[height, width, channels] or [frames, height, width, channels]
Truecolor, plane interlace[channels, height, width] or [frames, channels, height, width]

The exact dataset interpretation depends on the subclass plus the interlace mode.

Pannable wide or tall images

When an image would be clipped heavily by the current terminal aspect ratio, h5v switches from a simple fit-to-area preview to a windowed image view. The image chrome then shows which row or column range is currently visible, and the hidden portion can be explored like a pannable image slice.

In practice this works especially well for unusually wide or tall datasets. The bundled example path /images/wide_grayscale is intended to demonstrate that behavior.