US military NGA .ntf image format, a different format than UK Ordnance Survey .ntf. NITF stands for National Imagery Transmission Format, a format used mostly by military users in the US and UK for images, but at times has been used for some satellite images generated by high-resolution commercial satellites. Any extended data, such as text, in an NITF file will be imported into a comments component. NITF does not provide coordinate system information.
To import from NITF format:
Choose File-Import from the main menu.
In the Import dialog browse to the folder containing data of interest.
Double-click the file ending in .ntf for the data of interest.
A variety of folders, tables and drawings will be created.
We can double-click on images to view them.
The image appears without using the correct projection. That is a good reason to avoid using NITF format whenever possible, to avoid the tedious work of finding out what coordinate system is supposed to be used and then assigning it.
NITF is also used by the military for non-geographic images, such as the above image of a helicopter.
JPEG2000 ready - NITF files can embed images encoded in JPEG2000 format. The NITF dataport handles those, allowing JPEG2000 images within NITF files automatically to be imported or linked and available for use.