2016.10.24 18:43 "Re: [Tiff] Question regarding tag StripOffsets when there is only one strip", by Paavo Helde

On 24.10.2016 17:54, Recursive wrote:

I have to do some operations on TIFF files which LibTIFF obviously can't do, nor can any of the tools or programs I am aware of. I have dedicated several days to searching and testing all sorts of freeware, shareware and open source software under Windows and Linux, a big part of them using LibTIFF under the hoods, but to no avail. So writing my own software is my last option.

By the way, the TIFF specification is not too bad, is it? I had no serious problems with understanding it (at least the parts which I believe are important for solving my problem). I don't need to support BigTIFF, and I'll have a co-worker test the software for several days, hoping that she is able to find many sample multi-page TIFF files of all sorts on the net.

Out of curiosity, what is the operation on TIFF files which cannot be done via LibTIFF? Maybe the LibTIFF library should be enhanced to include this operation?

If your software is meant for public use and work on TIFF files from unknown origin, then you cannot ignore BigTIFF. There is at least one large company which produces all TIFF-s as BigTIFF even if they are only 10 kB in size. The format will certainly become more popular in the future.

You need also support tiled TIFF-s. You need also support all the different compression schemes. Do you really want to implement LZW and JPEG decompression from scratch? And are you prepared for upgrading your software when new compression schemes or other features are added in the future?

Are you prepared to handle RowsPerStrip tags which are missing or have invalid value (happens in many TIFF files)? Are you prepared to handle the missing or duplicate zero terminators in the end of string values? Etc, etc.

There is a reason why software libraries exist.

Cheers
Paavo