- DirectDraw Surface
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The DirectDraw Surface file format (uses the filename extension DDS), from Microsoft, is a standard for storing data compressed with the lossy S3 Texture Compression (S3TC) algorithm,[1] which can be decompressed in hardware by GPUs and consoles like the Playstation Portable, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. This makes the format useful for storing graphical textures and cubic environment maps as a data file, both compressed and uncompressed.[2] The Microsoft Windows file extension for this data format is '.dds'.[3]
Contents
History
This format was introduced with DirectX 7.0. In DirectX 8.0, support for volume textures was added. Though it was originally designed for DirectX, it can also be used in OpenGL as well via the GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) ARB texture compression extension. With Direct3D 10, the file format was extended to allow an array of textures to be included, as well as support for new Direct3D 10.x and 11 texture formats.[4]
See also
- DirectX
- Direct3D
- DirectDraw
- DXTn (S3 Texture Compression)
- GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language)
References
- ^ Dominé, Sébastien (March 11, 2003). "Using Texture Compression in OpenGL" (PDF). NVIDIA Corporation. http://developer.nvidia.com/attach/6585. Retrieved 2010-01-29.
- ^ Brooker, Darren (2006). Essential CG lighting techniques with 3ds max (2nd ed.). Elsevier. p. 22. ISBN 024052022X.
- ^ Ahearn, Luke (2009). 3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop (2nd ed.). Focal Press. p. 55. ISBN 0240811488.
- ^ "Programming Guide for DDS". Microsoft. 2010. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb943991(VS.85).aspx. Retrieved 2010-06-15.
External links
- Programmer's Guide for DDS
- Example .dds loader in C++
- DDS Plugin for GIMP
- Adobe Photoshop Plug-ins (nVidia)
- NVIDIA Texture Tools
- The Compressonator (AMD)
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