TIFF to FITS Conversion under Windows

[Robert Deane]

There are Unix programs that convert TIFF to FITS format via intermediate file
formats, but is there any Windows 95 compatible software that can do it ? I
have some old ccd images in TIFF format that I want to use as the White image
for WCMY colour imaging, but can't yet find a way to get TIFF data back to
FITS format. Of course, the FITS header will need reconstructing, but that
can be done in most software.. Any suggestions?
Robert Deane <r...@direct.ca>

[Joseph O'Neil]

GWS - Graphic Work Shop, from Alchemy mindworks, alst I
checked, did convert Tiff to Fits, although there seems to be a couple
of differeent interpretations of the "Fits' format out there.
Anyhow, i lost the URL, but a Yahoo search will turn up their
web site quick. You can download the shareware version fromt eh web
site, and see if it works for you before you buy it.
joe

http://www.multiboard.com/~joneil/store.html
London, Ont, Canada

[RMOLLISE]

>There are Unix programs that convert TIFF to FITS format via intermediate
>file
>formats, but is there any Windows 95 compatible software that can do it ? I
>have some old ccd images in TIFF format that I want to use as the White image
>
>for WCMY colour imaging, but can't yet find a way to get TIFF data back to
>FITS format. Of course, the FITS header will need reconstructing, but that
>can be done in most software.. Any suggestions?

>Robert Deane <r...@direct.ca>
>
>

Hi Robert:

There may be a way--if you have a copy of Adobe Photoshop. There was a FITS
plugin floating around that allowed you to do this, if I recall. It didn't work
quite right on my older Photoshop version (header problems, etc.), but
apparently works well on the latest releases. I'm ashamed to say that I don't
have a url for you, but I'd think that your search engine would turn it up.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Mobile Astronomical Society
http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index7.html
The Home of _From City Lights to Deep Space_:
Rod's Guidebook for the _Urban_ Deep Sky NUT!!
*********************************************************

[Bob May]

The problem with TIFF files is that there are several standards for encoding
the image. I don't know if there's a single converter that will handle all
of them. I speak of this from my years working at a place that developed
the precursor to JPEG and was one of the forces in developing JPEG. The
company started to develop a converter in thier own library for developers
of software and gave up after 2 flavors and said that was enough. From that
time on, the word was to recommend that the files be converted to something
that the library could read. The best thing is to leave TIFF file formats
alone unless you really want to get crazy. If you have a TIFF library,
consider finding a converter that will handle the format and convert them
into something that is lossless (JPEG is one of the lossy formats) and use
that.
Have Fun and keep Looking Up.
Bob May

[Chris Spratt]

Why would you anyway? SBIG and StarLight Xpress can't read TIFF files and can't
read or process anything but their generic own Fits files.
At least MaxIM DL can read a SBIG TIFF file but it can't, for some reason, read
or process a StarLight Xpress TIFF file.

[Ralf Muschall]

Robert Deane wrote:

> There are Unix programs that convert TIFF to FITS format via intermediate file
> formats, but is there any Windows 95 compatible software that can do it ? I

Essentially, netpbm (or pbmplus) compiles with DJGPP on DOS,
but just everything containing TIF broke (TIF contains FAX G3,
and the programs which use this include a HUUUUUGE table of
constants computed a build time, which caused the box I was on
to stop). Maybe you are luckier with more RAM.

You will have to do some tiny changes to the open() calls
in order to interpret the \r\n-nightmare on DOS properly.

The advantage is that these program come with an user-friendly
command line - no need to acquire RSI by mousing around in a
GUI.

Ralf