What is a BIF file?
A BIF file is a raster image file that contains the slide specimen image. It consists multiple TIFF images that are combined by slide viewing applications into a single composite image. BIF files are created by Ventana Medical systems digital slide scanner and are fully compliant with the BigTIFF-variant of the TIFF v 6.0 definition.
BIF File Format
A BIF file is saved as binary image file and consist of as many as 200,000 x 200,000 pixels. This can lead to large file sizes, breaking the 4 GB size limit imposed by the 32-bit file pointers defined by the TIF-standard. With 64-bit file pointers, however, this file-size barrier is overcome by the BigTIFF-variant of the TIFF-standard.
Who uses BIF File?
BIF files are used by digital slide scanners to scan and create digital copies of slide specimens. If you are a Pathologist, you can open these BIF files in slide-viewing applications. With great level of details and high resolution data, you can zoom in and out a slide image to view specimen sections in more or less details. The XML metadata file present in these files defines how the images should be combined, and the image that should be used as the file’s thumbnail.
How to Open BIF File?
You can open BIF files with:
- OpenSlide (cross-platform)
- ImageJ (cross-platform)
- NetScope Viewer (Windows)
