Acronyms

It can be confusing and difficult to keep track of the myriad acronyms used for companies, technologies, concepts, or practices in the context of ACES and the industry as a whole. We have collected and defined many of the acronyms associated with ACES and related fields on this page for reference.

The acronyms are grouped roughly by category, so either scroll down the page or, more conveniently if looking for a specific acronym, hit ‘ctrl + f’ or ‘command + f’ and type the acronym.

COMPANIES/ORGANIZATIONS

• AMPAS: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
• ASC: American Society of Cinematographers
• CML: Cinematography Mailing List
• CSP: Cinespace
• DCI: Digital Cinema Initiatives
• DCS: Digital Cinema Society
• FSI: Flanders Scientific Inc.
• ICC: International Color Consortium
• NSC: Netherlands Society of Cinematographers

FILE TYPES/FORMATS

• AAF: Advanced Authoring Format
• ACES: Academy Color Encoding Specification
• ADX: Academy Density Exchange encoding
• ALE: Avid Log Exchange
• AMF: ACES Metadata File
• APD: Academy Printing Density
• CLF: Common LUT Format
• CDL: Color Decision List
• CTL: Color Transformation Language
• DCP: Digital Cinema Package
• DCTL: DaVinci Color Transformation Language
• EDL: Edit Decision List
• IPP: Image Processing Pipeline
• XML: Extensible Markup Language

SOFTWARE

• API: Application Program Interface
• OCIO: OpenColor Input/Output
• OFX: OpenFX Image Effect Plug-in API
• OSD: On-Set Dailies
• SDK: Software Development Kit

GENERAL TERMINOLOGY

• ACES: Academy Color Encoding System
• CAM: Color Appearance Model
• CAT: Chromatic Adaptation Transform
• EE: Extended range in and Extended range out, used in LUT file names.
• EOTF: Electro-Optical Transfer Function
• HDR: High Dynamic Range
• IDT: Input Transform (formerly Input Device Transform)
• LL: Legal range in and Legal range out, used in LUT file names.
• LMS: color space relating to the three types of cone photoreceptors in the human eye (Long, Medium, Short).
• LMT: Look Transform (formerly Look Modification Transform)
• LUT: Look Up Table (commonly seen as 1D LUT or 3D LUT)
• PFE: Print Film Emulation
• RRT: Reference Rendering Transform, converts scene-referred colorimetry to display-referred
• ODT: Output Transform (formerly Output Device Transform)
• OECF: Opto-Electronic Conversion Function
• OETF: Opto-Electronic Transfer Function
• OOG: Out Of Gamut

PHYSICAL TECHNOLOGIES

• CMYK: Cyan Magenta Yellow Black, subtractive inks used in common printing.
• DCP: Digital Cinema Projector
• PRD: Perfect Reflecting Diffuser
• SDI: Serial Digital Interface, standard coaxial cable for video transmission.