• LINKS
• What is HDF?
• Downloads
• Documentation
• Software using HDF4
• HDF4 Users
• Licenses

Following is a list of the HDF utilities that are available. These tools come with the pre-compiled binary distribution for the platforms we support and can also be downloaded individually. See the Obtaining the HDF Software page for downloading.

Please refer to Chapter 15 in the HDF User's Guide for detailed information regarding the HDF (4) utilities.

One of the most useful utilities is:

• hdp
  provides quick and general information about all objects in an HDF file

Other utilities:

• gif2hdf
  converts GIF image into HDF GR image.

• hdf24to8
  converts 24-bit raster images to hdf 8-bit images

• h4cc
  compiles an HDF4 C program

• h4fc
  compiles an HDF4 F90 program

• h4redeploy
  Updates paths in h4cc/h4fc after the HDF4 pre-compiled binaries have been installed in a new location

• hdf2gif
  converts HDF GR image into GIF image.

• hdf2jpeg
  converts hdf raster images to jpeg images

• hdf8to24
  converts an 8-bit image into a 24-bit image

• hdfcomp
  re-compresses an 8-bit raster hdf file

• hdfed
  hdf file editor

• hdfls
  lists information about an HDF file at a low level (requires understanding of tags/refs in HDF)

• hdfimport
  imports ASCII or binary data into HDF

• hdfpack
  compacts an hdf file

• hdftopal
  extracts a palette from an hdf file

• hdftor8
  extracts 8-bit raster images and palettes from an hdf file

• hdfunpac
  unpacks an HDF file by exporting the scientific data elements (DFTAG_SD) to external object elements. This is a utility for external file handling for the parallel I/O interface on the CM5.

• hdiff
  compares two HDF files and reports the differences (Info)

• hrepack
  copies an HDF file to a new file with/without compression and/or chunking (Info)

• jpeg2hdf
  converts jpeg images to hdf raster images

• ncdump
  generates an ASCII representation of a netCDF file (for input to ncgen)

• ncgen
  converts a CDL description of a netCDF file into an HDF file

• paltohdf
  converts a raw palette to hdf

• r8tohdf
  converts 8-bit raster images to hdf

• ristosds
  converts a series of raster image hdf files into a single 3D sds hdf file.

• vmake
  creates vsets

• vshow
  dumps out vsets in an hdf file

HDF and HDF5 Java Tools

• HDFView
  A Java-based tool for browsing and editing HDF4 and HDF5 files.

• HDF Java Products

HDF Web-browser Plugin

The HDF Web-browser Plugin extends a web browser to display HDF4 and HDF5 files. Currently, it is only available on the Windows platform. It can be obtained from the following page:

   /plugins/

H4-H5 Conversion Software

• Converting between HDF 4.x and HDF5

• FTP Location of Source

Other Tools of Interest

• Software using HDF

- - Last modified:December 10th 2009