# Acquiring Images from a Stored File

As you create and test your application, you might find it useful to acquire images from a single file or a collection of files stored in an image database. Image files can contain examples of the kind of images your deployed application is likely to encounter.

Use an Image File tool to acquire images from a file or save an acquired image to a file for later use. VisionPro offers several classes of image file objects depending on the format of the input images you want to use:

- ImageFileBMP: bitmap (.bmp) files in 24-bit color or 8-bit grey
- ImageFileCDB: images in .cdb/.idb format along with the coordinate space tree (and currently selected coordinate space) associated with each image
- ImageFileTIFF: Tagged Image File Format (.tif) for high quality print graphics and scans

If your application requires you to read multiple file types, use the generic ImageFileTool object.

See the following for more information: