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October 2000
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2000.10.05 04:58 "Re: Varying BitsPerSample", by Sam Leffler
> I would really like to see some of these (in particular the MINSAMPLEVALUE
> and MAXSAMPLEVALUE) handled on a per-sample in libtiff. It would also
> be nice if the types of each sample could be controlled, though I think this
> would result in datasets that work properly with very few packages. It
> might be quite difficult to even get the libtiff tools programs to support
> this fully.
>
> In short, I am willing to work with you to make libtiff handle this better,
> but I think it unwise to generate files like this if you actually want them
> to work with any other software.
>
> I too would be interested in more educated opinions.
The documentation clearly states (or so I recall) that BitsPerSample must be
the same for each sample. This was a conscious design decision based on my
experiences--that the vast majority of usage had each sample the same width
and that it wasn't worthwhile adding the complexity of varying bits per
sample.
You will find a couple other TIFF tags likewise constrained by the library.
All are/should be documented (I'm certain the manual pages state limitations
and the HTML documentation should as well).
Sam