bildata

Bildata is the data that encodes the visual information of an image. It is distinct from image metadata, which records properties such as capture time, camera settings, or calibration. Bildata is typically organized as a two-dimensional array of pixel values, often with multiple channels to represent color information.

In color images, pixels are represented in color models such as RGB or RGBA, with common bit depths like 8 bits per channel, yielding 24-bit or 32-bit pixels. The standard memory layout is height by width by channels, though some formats use interleaved or planar storage. Grayscale images use a single channel. Bildata may be stored as raw arrays within software or embedded in file formats that define the pixel data layout.

Bildata is stored in both uncompressed and compressed formats. Uncompressed bitmaps, raw arrays, or simple formats store the exact pixel values, while formats like PNG or TIFF can apply lossless compression. JPEG uses lossy compression and is widely used for photographs. File headers and accompanying metadata describe dimensions, color space, and other calibration or descriptive information.

In practice, bildata is loaded into software as arrays or tensors for processing in image processing, computer vision, and machine learning workflows. Common operations include normalization, resizing, cropping, augmentation, and feature extraction. Specialized domains, such as medical imaging, may use domain-specific formats and standards (for example, DICOM) to encapsulate image data alongside clinical metadata.

The term bildata is used in both German-speaking and English-language contexts to refer to the underlying image data, with its exact interpretation depending on the domain and file format involved.