1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to image data management and in particular to a container file for large format imagery and method of creating the container file and organizing data within the container file.
2. Discussion of Related Art
An image generally contains a plurality of pixels (e.g., several hundred megapixels) and each pixel has one, two or more bands. Each band has a certain color depth or bit depth. For example, an RGB color-based image has 3 bands, the red band (R), the green band (G) and the blue band (B). Each of the R, G and B bands can have a depth of 8 bits or more.
An image sensor can be used to capture a series of images, each image having several hundred megapixels. The images may be captured in sequence, for example at a reasonably constant frequency. Each image (i.e., each still image) in the sequence or series of images may have one or more distinct bands and may cover any part of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be captured by the image sensor. The image sensor may be a single sensor or a combination of a matrix of multiple sensors arranged to generate a single image. Therefore, the series of relatively large images captured by an image sensor over a certain period of time at a near constant capture rate are considered to be large format motion imagery.