Band interleaved by line, band interleaved by pixel, and band sequential are three common methods of organizing image data for multiband images. BIL, BIP, and BSQ are not in themselves image formats, but are schemes for storing the actual pixel values of an image in a file. The pixel data is typically preceded by a file header that contains such ancillary data about the image as the number of rows and columns in the image, a colormap, latitude and longitude.

Band interleaved by line (BIL) data stores pixel information band by band for each line, or row, of the image. For example, given a three-band image, all three bands of data are written for row 1, all three bands of data are written for row 2, and so on, until the total number of rows in the image is reached. The following diagram illustrates BIL data:

Band interleaved by pixel (BIP) data is similar to BIL data, except that the data for each pixel is written band by band. For example, with the same three-band image, the data for bands 1, 2 and 3 are written for the first pixel in column 1; the data for bands 1, 2 and 3 are written for the first pixel in column 2; and so on.

Band sequential (BSQ) format stores information for the image one band at a time. In other words, data for all pixels for band 1 is stored first, then data for all pixels for band 2, and so on.

Although BIL, BIP, and BSQ are data organization methods, they are treated as three additional image formats supported by ArcView 3.x. However, any image format that uses BIL, BIP, or BSQ as its underlying data organization scheme can be displayed when presented to ArcView 3.x with the appropriate image description files.