2012.03.01 00:21 "Re: [Tiff] BigTiff support (libtiff 4.0.1 vs libtif f4.1)", by Joris Van Damme

All,

That's not true in all applications. Our users deal with terabytes of data but files are typically in the 10-500 MB range. There is however occasional need for a few much larger files. There is also a need for the common files to work with all the other software out there.

In such cases, and if storage requirements aren't too strict, maybe it's a good idea to write a BigTIFF file first. You can next use its size as a very reasonably good estimator of an old TIFF file size. If it's less then 4 gig, you could confidently add the plain old TIFF. Maybe that's not ideal, but in some circumstances it could be a transitory strategy.

Expanding on that idea, maybe in some environments and on some operating systems, it could be a good idea to write a shell extension that can present a virtual old TIFF for every BigTIFF file less then 4 gig in size. The conversion required to be implemented by the shell extension is very feasible.

Best regards,

Joris Van Damme
AWare Systems