View SVS files in your browser
The whole slide Aperio's scanners save, a pathology slide at every magnification. Open one right here and zoom from the glass to its cells. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your slide opens whole, then sharpens tile by tile as you zoom in to its cells, read from the smaller copies the scanner keeps.
- The whole slide • Zoom from the glass to its cells
- Label and the glass • Images of their own
- Measure • Lengths in µm, with a scale bar
- Export • Save the view as PNG or the slide as OME-TIFF
About SVS
Aperio's ScanScope and GT 450 scanners, now Leica Biosystems', save each slide they scan as an SVS, and it's the most common whole slide format in pathology, in hospitals, research labs and public archives like The Cancer Genome Atlas.
An SVS is a TIFF holding the scan at full size in tiles, often 100,000 pixels across, then smaller copies of it, each a quarter of the one before, packed with JPEG or JPEG 2000. A thumbnail, a picture of the label and one of the whole glass sit beside them, and the description keeps the magnification and the size of a pixel in µm.
Filepeek reads it in your browser, each tile only when it shows, from the copy that fits the zoom, so a slide of several GB opens at once. The label and the picture of the glass are images of their own, Measure gives lengths in µm, and Export saves the view as PNG or the slide as an OME-TIFF as big as your device holds.
Aperio ScanScope Virtual Slide
.svs
Format
- MIME type
- application/octet-stream
- Made by
- Aperio, now Leica Biosystems
Inside the file
- Built on
- TIFF
- Tiles
- JPEG or JPEG 2000
- Levels
- Full size and smaller copies
- Also
- Thumbnail, label and glass
Opens in every browser
Filepeek opens SVS in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. No browser shows it by itself.
- YouChromeOpens through Filepeek
- YouEdgeOpens through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxOpens through Filepeek
- YouSafariOpens through Filepeek
Apps that open SVS
- WindowsAperio ImageScope and QuPath, free
- MacQuPath, free
- iPhone and iPadNo app built in opens it
- AndroidNo app built in opens it
Questions
How do I open an SVS file?
Drop it on this page or press Peek an SVS. The whole slide shows first, and its tiles sharpen as you zoom in, read from the file only when they show.
Can I zoom in to the cells?
Yes. Scroll, pinch or use the zoom buttons. Each level of the slide is read in tiles as it comes into sight, down to the scan's own pixels and past them.
Where is the slide's label?
Under Images, beside the scan: the label as the scanner photographed it, and the picture of the whole glass. Some labs take the label off before they share a slide, and then it isn't there.
Can I measure on the slide?
Yes. Turn on Measure and drag across a cell or a region. The length shows in µm from the pixel size the slide keeps, and the scale bar follows the zoom.
Why won't my SVS open in a photo viewer?
An SVS is a TIFF, but one whose full size picture is far too big for photo apps, which read it whole. Slide viewers read it a tile at a time, as Filepeek does.