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JSC TARGA vs. NASA Image ID

 

The image libraries contain low-resolution images done for the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal by NASA Johnson. These images - originally in TGA format but now in JPG - are identified by 'TARGA' filenames which, because the film magazines weren't scanned in order, do not correspond directly to the sequence of NASA photo IDs.

For example, image 20130729> in the TARGA sequence is a low resolution scan of AS11-40-5886, the frame from Buzz's Plus-Z pan that shows Neil at the MESA.

As a help in finding images in either set based on photo number in the other set, Markus Mehring provides two cross-references, one ordered on NASA photo IDs and the other on TARGA filenames.

Note that the low-resolution images are gradually being replaced with scans from original film.

 

Some of you may wonder, what's a 'TARGA'? I did; and here's an explanation from Markus. "It's an acronym. The full meaning is 'Truevision Advanced Raster Graphics Adapter', and was conceived by Truevision Inc., to have a unique true-color bitmap format for their own line of 'TARGA' graphics cards, which used to be mildly popular many years ago. So the format is basically named after the hardware. The short version 'TGA' is based on the original DOS file system specs, where filenames were composed of eight letters for the name and three letters for the extension ('FILENAME.TGA'). If I'm not mistaken, TARGA is a copyrighted term or a trademark, not sure if the same goes for the format specifications as well. But then, it doesn't really matter in this day and age of easy back and forth conversion between a multitude of image formats, and people aren't really serious about using TGAs anymore, since far more feasible and superior formats exist (mostly in terms of compression capabilities). Also I don't know who would hold those rights today, seeing that Truevision Inc. doesn't seem to be around anymore."

 

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