2008.04.17 14:45 "Re: [Tiff] What's the utility of complex-valued samples?", by John

2008/4/17 Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com>:

Yesterday someone on the list mentioned that samples can have complex values (with either integer or floating point real/imaginary parts), and I wracked my brains but absolutely could not figure out why you'd need that. Pigments are either there or not, in varying amounts; complex values don't make sense for that purpose.

They are handy for FFTs if you work in the Fourier domain at all. I've also used complex images to represent vector fields: you can use the real and imaginary parts to indicate the direction and magnitude of image gradient, or perhaps of a function you are using to resample the image.

John