1998.11.11 16:00 "Four-gig limit?", by <d_smith@ecrm.com>

We (and others) use various flavors of TIFF format as the preferred file format for representing bitmapped images to be output on our imagesetters.

One of our present imagesetters is mechanically and optically capable of producing images up to 80" long on 25" wide media at 3556 dpi resolution = 3.16 gig. As we experiment with, um, pushing out the envelope, we are discovering all sorts of fascinating software limitations in various things that start creeping in at about 2 gig. In particular, the TIFF spec presently seems to be limited to 4 gig maximum. Sort of like Y2K, this isn't a big issue for us now, but we see it becoming a real issue within a few years.

Are there any plans to support TIFF images >4 gig? Anyone doing this now? Official or unofficial extensions? Any real-world experience with giant TIFF files that would be worth sharing?

Editor's note: This mail was not originally archived, and has been reconstructed from quotes.