[fitsbits] We're in the wrong industry...

[Rob Seaman]

In preparation for the (proposed) ADASS XIX BoF (Pence, White, Gaudet
& Seaman), "Astronomical Data Compression: Algorithms &
Architectures", I've been poking around in some peculiar corners of
image formats. One interesting case is OpenEXR from Industrial Light
& Magic:

http://www.openexr.com

This is a F/OSS format and software package that supports high dynamic
range computer imaging for the movie industry, principally through 16-
bit floats. Scanning down through their announcements we come to:

> January 4, 2007 - OpenEXR wins an Academy Award for Technical
> Achievement.
>
> The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the
> 15 winners of Scientific and Technical Academy Awards. A Technical
> Achievement Award goes to Florian Kainz for the design and
> engineering of OpenEXR, a software package implementing 16-bit,
> floating-point, high dynamic range image files. Widely adopted,
> OpenEXR is engineered to meet the requirements of the visual effects
> industry by providing for lossless and lossy compression of tiered
> and tiled images.

This is like FITS, CFITSIO and tile compression winning an Oscar
(tm) :-)

Rob