Extract text from ZVI files
To convert your ZVI file to another format, you need AxioVision or other Raster Image software.
To convert other file formats to the "Scientific Microscopy Data" file type, you need software like AxioVision or a similar tool.
The .ZVI format is a proprietary microscopy image file generated by older versions of AxioVision software from Carl Zeiss. Unlike standard images, a .ZVI file acts as a container (based on the Microsoft Compound File structure) holding raw image data, multi-channel layers (e.g., fluorescence channels), and critical acquisition metadata like scaling, exposure times, and microscope objectives.
While excellent for scientific analysis, the .ZVI format presents significant hurdles for sharing and publication. It is effectively "locked" to the scientific ecosystem; standard tools like Windows Photos, macOS Preview, or web browsers cannot render it. Furthermore, AxioVision is now considered legacy software, having been superseded by Zeiss ZEN, making it increasingly difficult to find compatible viewers for archived data. For professional use, researchers typically convert these files to OME-TIFF or standard TIFF to preserve bit-depth and metadata integrity. For rapid sharing or inclusion in PowerPoint presentations, converting a flattened version to JPEG or PNG is the most practical workflow.
Convert.Guru analyzes your ZVI file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted ZIP, SAV, LSM, JPG and HEIC files.
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 ZVI converter.