1999.06.03 19:48 "Large File Support", by Bruce Forsberg

1999.06.09 22:03 "Re: Re(2): Large File Support", by Martin Bailey

As psmith and I have already stated, our respective companies ARE up against it NOW, although it is not yet a crisis... just an anxiety lurking under the bed.

The way it arose here was: we make a (really good) imagesetter (called the StingRay, http://www.ecrm.com/, email sales@ecrm.com, or anywhere better imagesetters are sold) that can image up to 25" wide by 8' long at up to 3556 dpi. So we were about to print that in our specs. And someone conscientious said, "Before we do, let's make sure we REALLY can 25" wide AND 8' long AND 3556 dpi. Go have someone set that up." And someone on the software side had to say, "Sorry, Dave, I can't do that." It really makes the mechanical and optical engineers and the marketing people cranky when they have a machine that could do something neat if only it weren't limited by that pesky software.

We've had customers that needed 25" wide and customers that needed 8' long and customers that needed 3556 dpi, but so far nobody has needed all three of them at the same time. It doesn't take a Cassandra to see trouble ahead, though.

OK, OK, I'm convinced that people using TIFF have a real problem here, but surely, Dan, you're not using TIFF/IT for the raster that you plan to send to your imagesetter (a fine beast indeed, especially when driven by a high quality Harlequin RIP!).

Even after saying that, though, I will certainly raise the issue again in the ISO task force working on TIFF/IT-P2. Of course, it may not be possible for us to do anything about the problem, constrained as we are by working within the TIFF 6 framework.

Regards

Martin Bailey

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 Digital Print & Publishing                 Harlequin Ltd
 martinb@harlequin.com           http://www.harlequin.com
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 I try to ensure that my views expressed here accord with
 my employers, but I am not a spokesman for Harlequin and
        the buck stops with me for what I say here
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