Image MIME Reference
KTX
Khronos Texture
image/ktx
VS
Portable Graymap
image/x-portable-graymap
PGM
A complete technical comparison of Khronos Texture and Portable Graymap — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.
Equal browser support
Feature Support
| Feature | KTX | PGM |
|---|---|---|
| Transparency (Alpha) | Yes | ✕ No |
| Animation Support | ✕ No | ✕ No |
| Progressive Loading | ✕ No | ✕ No |
| HDR Support | Yes | Yes |
| EXIF Metadata | ✕ No | ✕ No |
| ICC Color Profile | ✕ No | ✕ No |
Khronos Texture
image/ktx
Extension
.ktx
Container
KTX (Khronos Texture 1.1)
Compression
Uncompressed / GPU Compressed (ASTC, ETC, BCn, PVRTC)
Algorithm
ASTCETC1 / ETC2BCn (DXT)PVRTCBasis Universal (in KTX2)
Color Depth
8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit (Integer/Float)
Developed by
Khronos Group
Released
2010
Magic Bytes
AB 4B 54 58 20 31 31 BB 0D 0A 1A 0A
Portable Graymap
image/x-portable-graymap
Extension
.pgm
Container
Netpbm
Compression
Uncompressed
Algorithm
None
Color Depth
8-bit (Grayscale), 16-bit (Grayscale)
Developed by
Jef Poskanzer (Netpbm Project)
Released
1988
Magic Bytes
50 32 (ASCII) or 50 35 (Binary)
Browser Support Comparison
| Browser | KTX | PGM |
|---|---|---|
Chrome
|
✕ | ✕ |
Firefox
|
✕ | ✕ |
Safari
|
✕ | ✕ |
Edge
|
✕ | ✕ |
IE (Legacy)
|
✕ | ✕ |
KTX
KTX Strengths
- Enables direct-to-GPU texture uploading, drastically reducing load times and CPU overhead in 3D applications
- Supports complex texture types natively (mipmaps, cubemaps, 3D volumes, texture arrays)
- Standardized across major Khronos APIs (OpenGL, Vulkan, WebGL) unlike vendor-specific formats like DDS
Limitations
- Requires custom JavaScript loaders to parse and display on the web
- Zero native support in consumer image viewers or 2D photo editing software
- Format fragmentation: a KTX file containing an ASTC payload will fail to render on hardware that only supports BCn compression (KTX2 and Basis Universal solve this)
PGM
PGM Strengths
- Extremely simple format allows custom parsers to be written from scratch in minimal time
- Supports 16-bit precision, making it highly valuable for scientific, medical, and height-map data where 8-bit precision is insufficient
- ASCII encoding ('P2') allows manual editing and visual inspection of pixel values directly within a text editor
Limitations
- Strictly limited to grayscale; cannot display color
- Lack of compression results in massive file sizes, making it entirely impractical for web delivery or consumer storage
- Does not support alpha transparency or modern metadata structures
When to choose which format
KTX
Use KTX when…
- Real-time 3D Graphics
- WebGL / WebGPU Applications
- Mobile Games
- Virtual/Augmented Reality (VR/AR)
PGM
Use PGM when…
- Computer Vision and Machine Learning Pre-processing
- Scientific and Medical Image Processing
- Unix/Linux Command-Line Image Pipelines