Truevision TGA: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Truevision TGA is a raster graphics file format. It was the native format of Truevision Inc.'s TARGA boards, which were some of the first graphic cards for IBM-compatible PCs to support truecolor display.

TGA files commonly have the extension ".tga" and can store image data with 1-32 bits of precision per pixel. Color data can be color-mapped, or in directcolor or truecolor format; optionally, a lossless RLE compression can be employed.

The TGA file format was originally defined by Truevision Inc. in 1984. Several enhancements such as "postage stamps" (better known as thumbnails), an alpha channel, gamma value, and textual metadata were introduced in 1989.