2002.03.22 03:59 "Re: Decoding Kodak Tiffs", by Ken Murchison

My company has just released the first handheld photo editing and wireless transmission solution for photojournalists. A large wire service has asked us to add support for the tiff files generated by their Kodak DCS 520 Pro cameras. They are proprietary tiffs containing raw 12 bit CCD data, with a 2:1 lossless compression applied. Kodak has an SDK for Windows and Mac, but not Pocket PC, and is unwilling to provide the details needed to decode the tiffs without using their SDKs. A long shot, but does anyone have any clues as to the compression scheme they are using in these files? There are some samples at http://www.kodak.com/US/en/developers/tools/03_dcs520.jhtml

The RAW CCD data is stored as 2 channel lossless JPEG per TTN #2. Even if you decompress the data (which I have) you need to then parse an EXIF-style IFD and another private IFD to get all of the interpolation algorithm specific stuff. You then need to know what their new algorithm is (its NOT the same algorithm as the DCS 420 family).

The bottom line is your probably screwed. We used to write DCS camera software for UNIX platforms which we sold to the government for a number of years, and haven't been able to do anything with the new family of pro cameras because Kodak won't release any details, even though one of Kodak's largest customers (the government/military) wanted to use these cameras on Sun and HP platforms.

Ken

Kenneth Murchison     Oceana Matrix Ltd.
Software Engineer     21 Princeton Place
716-662-8973 x26      Orchard Park, NY 14127
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