format_IsNative

Determine whether a file format has full 'native' support. Please see comments for the distinction between native and non-native support.

bool CExtAPI::format_IsNative(ZFORMAT hFormat);

False if:

• The format is non-native, or;
• An error occurred.

True otherwise.

A format is considered native if:

1. It can both load and save maps.
2. The load/save operation is lossless, or minimally lossy.
3. The files contain sufficient information to load the maps, without human intervention (i.e. no import interface required.)

Here are some examples:

• RAW is non-native for heightfields because the format does not encode width/height, nor data type. Human intervention is always required to open RAW files.
• JPEG is non-native for heightfields, because the format has only 8-bit precision (which is too lossy for elevation data), and also discards the actual elevation data by clamping values between 0 and 255.
• JPEG is native for texture maps, because it supports 24bit colour, and with suitable compression, provides minimal loss.