VIFF to TAR Converter
Processing entirely on your device — large files may take a moment.
Khoros Visualization Image and TAR Archive exist for different jobs: VIFF is the image format of the Khoros software system, a research toolkit from the early days of scientific visualization. Still found in legacy academic image-processing datasets. TAR preserves the exact file tree and permissions that Linux tooling expects.
Because the whole conversion happens on your device, it is instant, unlimited and genuinely private — no accounts, no watermarks, no files on anyone's server. Multiple files are converted in one go.
How VIFF compares to TAR
| VIFF | TAR | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | None (uncompressed) | None (pair with gzip/zstd) |
| Best for | Legacy scientific datasets | Linux packaging and source trees |
How to convert VIFF to TAR
- 1
Select your files
Select your VIFF file — it never leaves your device.
- 2
Convert instantly
The engine packs the file, byte for byte, into a TAR container — no re-encoding, no quality change.
- 3
Download results
Download the finished TAR archive.
About the VIFF format
VIFF is the image format of the Khoros software system, a visual-programming environment built for scientific image processing in the late 1980s and 1990s. Its files carry raster data plus optional attribute lists, and it survives today mostly in older academic datasets and image-processing course material.
Modern software rarely opens VIFF without help. Converting VIFF to PNG puts legacy research imagery into a format every viewer, notebook and browser understands — useful when reviving old datasets or coursework.
+Strengths
- ✓Holds multi-band scientific raster data
- ✓Attribute lists travel with the image
- ✓Simple, fully documented binary layout
!Limitations
- −Tied to discontinued Khoros tooling
- −No browser or OS support
About the TAR format
TAR (tape archive) is Unix's fifty-year-old answer to bundling: it concatenates files with headers into a single stream, preserving POSIX permissions, ownership and symlinks — but compressing nothing. It is the container half of the classic .tar.gz pairing and the native format of Linux source trees and backups.
Being pure bundling, TAR pairs with a compressor: gzip (the classic), bzip2, zstd. Alone, a TAR is the same size as its contents. Windows 10+ ships bsdtar, so even Windows can unpack it now — permissions aside, where NTFS has no room to be faithful.
+Strengths
- ✓Preserves Unix permissions and symlinks
- ✓Streamable: works over pipes and tapes
- ✓The standard of Linux distribution and backup
!Limitations
- −No compression by itself
- −No built-in encryption
- −Permissions meaningless on Windows filesystems
Why convert VIFF to TAR?
Converting makes sense where the strengths of TAR meet what VIFF cannot give you. Preserves Unix permissions and symlinks Meanwhile Tied to discontinued Khoros tooling One pass through the converter above puts your file on the right side of that trade-off.
Frequently asked questions
Is this VIFF to TAR converter really free?
Yes — completely free, with no sign-up, no watermark and no daily conversion limits. The site is supported by advertising.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The conversion runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly, so your files never leave your device — that is what makes it instant and private.
Does it work on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android?
Yes. Anything with a modern browser works: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. No software installation is required.
Will I lose quality converting VIFF to TAR?
No — TAR is a lossless format, so every pixel of the converted image matches your original VIFF file. You can also adjust the quality/size balance before converting when the target format supports compression.
What happens to EXIF data and other metadata?
Conversions here re-encode the image, and re-encoding generally does not carry the original metadata over. If the EXIF data of your VIFF files matters (camera model, GPS, timestamps), keep the original file as the master and treat the converted copy as the shareable version.
Can I convert several VIFF files at once?
Yes — drop as many files as you like into the tool and they are converted in one batch. When more than one file comes out, everything is bundled into a ZIP for a single download.