1996.12.10 23:30 "the way to store 3D images in TIFF", by Hugues Talbot

Hello All,

We'd like to know the recommended way to store 3D images in TIFF. We've seen no recommended way in the 1992 TIFF 6.0 specs.

We have 2 solutions in mind:

  1. They can be stored as a single, multicomponent subimage, like a separated, CMYK image, but with the number of samples per pixel reflecting the number of planes in the image.
  2. That would make the reading of say, grey-level 3D images simple. However you would have to store the colour components of such 3D images in 3 subimages -- one for red, one for green and one for blue, say.
  3. They can be stored as a series of subimages. Each z plane would be stored in a single subimage. The colour components would then be stored as the standard way for 2D images, using the number of samples per pixel as the number of colour components -- RGB.

Solution 1 would have a definite advantage in terms of simplicity for reading, writing, and storage (only as many directories in the TIFF file as there are components, 3 in the RGB case). Solution 2 would be the natural extention from 2D to 3D as far as the TIFF format is concerned, but would require as many directories in the file as there are planes in the 3D image.

So what is the recommended way?

Thanks in advance.

  __________Hugues Talbot, CSIRO Maths & Info Sciences __________
 /                                                               \ 
|    ,-_|\     Down under, Locked Bag 17, North Ryde  NSW  2113  |
|   /     \                Ph: 61 2 9325 3224 Fax: 61 2 9325 3200|
|   \_,-._* <- There       (Building E6B, Macquarie University)  |
|        ,                 E-mail: hugues.talbot@cmis.csiro.au   |
|                          WWW: http://www.dms.csiro.au/~talbot  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+