VICAR Converter

Convert Planetary science images (VICAR) online for free


Drop or upload your .VICAR file
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How to convert your VICAR file

  1. Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your VICAR file.
  2. You'll see a preview.
  3. Click the "Convert file to..." button to save your file in the format you want.

Convert VICAR to another file type

The converter easily converts your VICAR Images to various formats - free and online. No VICAR or or other Raster Image software needed.

  • VICAR to ALIAS
  • VICAR to PS
  • VICAR to BMP3
  • VICAR to APNG
  • VICAR to AVIF
  • VICAR to RPF
  • VICAR to PGM
  • VICAR to RAW
  • VICAR to KERNEL
  • VICAR to PI2
  • VICAR to UBRL
  • VICAR to MIFF

Convert a file to VICAR

The converter also works in reverse, so you can convert other "Scientific Image File" formats to VICAR without using software like VICAR or a similar tool.

  • PWP to VICAR
  • JPT to VICAR
  • PES to VICAR
  • SCT to VICAR
  • PDF to VICAR
  • CGM to VICAR
  • PGM to VICAR
  • PALM to VICAR
  • PS to VICAR
  • PCD to VICAR
  • AVIF to VICAR
  • APNG to VICAR

About VICAR files

The .VICAR file extension stands for Video Image Communication And Retrieval. It is a highly specialized raster image format developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to store planetary science imagery collected by space missions, such as Mars rovers and deep-space probes. To open or process these files, scientists typically use NASA's open-source VICAR software suite or scientific image processing tools like ImageJ. General-purpose image editors completely ignore this format. Users need to convert .VICAR files because the format is practically useless for the general public. You cannot view it in web browsers, open it in standard OS viewers, or share it on social media. Furthermore, standard commercial converters fail to process it because it relies on unique Planetary Data System (PDS) ASCII headers that standard decoders cannot parse. The best target formats are TIFF to retain high-bit-depth scientific data without compression, or PNG and JPG for simple web viewing. Converting to JPG will destroy scientific precision due to lossy compression. Because this is a niche scientific format, standard online tools fail. Often, only specialized JPL software can properly read the raw pixel data. However, you can drag and drop your .VICAR file into convert.guru to identify the format, inspect the ASCII text headers, and show internal content. If our analysis detects a supported underlying data structure, viewing or conversion may still be possible.

Use Convert.Guru to open and convert your VICAR file.

Users also converted LM8 files.


FAQ

If you want to convert VICAR file to , you can use VICAR or similar software from the "Planetary science image format" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….

To convert files to VICAR, try VICAR or another comparable tool in the "Planetary science image format" category.



The VICAR Converter Story

The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our VICAR converter.