# AcademySoftwareFoundation/openexr

The OpenEXR project provides the specification and reference implementation of the EXR file format, the professional-grade image storage format of the motion picture industry.

Repository: https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/openexr
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/openexr
Homepage: http://www.openexr.com/
Language: C
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: openexr, images, image-processing, hdr, vfx, academy
Last push: 2026-08-25T04:33:55+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 99/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 98, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5304, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 12, "gap_med": 8.0, "n_releases_24m": 39}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1836, forks 700 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:42.664830+00:00)

## What it is
OpenEXR is the specification and reference C/C++ implementation of the EXR file format, the professional high-dynamic-range image storage format of the motion picture industry. It supports multi-part, multi-channel scene-linear image data with metadata, used in rendering, compositing, and DI pipelines.

## Use cases
- read and write EXR HDR image files
- store multi-channel render passes for compositing
- deep compositing image storage
- photorealistic rendering output format
- high-dynamic-range image I/O in C++
- lossless compressed HDR image archival

## When to choose
- you need industry-standard HDR scene-linear image storage
- your pipeline requires multi-part or deep image data
- accuracy, backwards compatibility, and data longevity matter
- you need a cross-platform C/C++ image format library

## When to avoid
- you need to store volumetric or 3D scene data - EXR is 2D only
- you only need simple LDR formats like PNG or JPEG
- you want a comprehensive linear algebra or numerical library (use Imath's broader alternatives)

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: image-processing, serialization, file-system, compression
- domain: graphics, image-processing, media, files
- platform: windows, cpp, c, cross-platform
- tags: hdr, exr-format, vfx, deep-compositing, reference-implementation, file-format, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- AcademySoftwareFoundation/openexr (main) score 99

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:42.664830+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:18:27.173460+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/openexr (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:42.664830+00:00, sha 2839a9f7790b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.