VICAR (Video Image Communication and Retrieval) Planetary File Format

Writable

image

The VICAR image file format is used primarily for storing planetary image data collected by both interplanetary spacecraft and Earth-based stations. Many astronomical and astrophysical organizations use and support the VICAR format. Full specifications available at http://www-mipl.jpl.nasa.gov/external/VICAR_file_fmt.pdf

Identify it

Extensions	`.vic.vicar.img`
MIME types	`image/vicar`
Signatures	`4c424c53495a453d` at byte 0 (VICAR Planetary File Format)
PRONOM	`fmt/383`
Wikidata	`Q16965621`

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Open it

ImageMagickOpen sourcereads and writes · ImageMagick License
ConverseenOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
vicar2pngOpen sourcereads · MIT License
VICAR Image Processing Systemreads and writes

Convert it

To	With	Fidelity	Command and losses
Portable Network Graphics	ImageMagick	Lossless	`convert in.vicar out.png` Pixels kept; some metadata, colour profiles or layers may be dropped.
Tagged Image File Format	ImageMagick	Lossless	`convert in.vicar out.tif` Pixels kept; some metadata, colour profiles or layers may be dropped.
GIF 89a	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.vicar out.gif` Reduced to 256 colours.
JPEG File Interchange Format 1.02	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.vicar out.jpg` Lossy compression.
WebP	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.vicar out.webp` Lossy compression.

Sources

From Converters (FFmpeg, ImageMagick, Pandoc, LibreOffice), Just Solve the File Format Problem (File Formats Wiki), PRONOM, Wikidata. Updated 2026-10-24.

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