Tiff images unreadable by BlueView

[kpm]

Have you had any reports that tiff images with LZW compression are unreadable by Schlumberger BlueView? ( http://www.slb.com/services/characteriz ... tware.aspx ). Macintosh PackBits RLE images are viewable, but not LZW. But I can read the images fine with Windows Photo Viewer. I am using version 5.0 of the PDF SDK to generate the images.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello kpm,

THis is the first time I see this so may I ask you a few questions:
Besides LZW compression are thumbnails generated?
Also how many colours are used in the tiff - is it B&W, Greyscale, 24 bit or more?

And if you can check in the Schlumberger BlueView manuals if it has any limitations on supporting any specific tiff features this might already be mentioned there.

Best,
Stefan

[kpm]

No thumbnail. Any bpp setting is unreadable. Windows Photo Viewer reads them all ok. Any chance I am building the files wrong? Could you try viewing one of your images with BlueView?

Thanks

Kevin

[John - Tracker Supp]

I am afraid this is not a problem with the images - but a limitation of the Viewer itself from Blueview....

LZW compression is not supported by many 3rd perty applications as it has something of a 'checkered' history in terms of Patents/copyrighjt etc and the PDF/A format specs actually specifiy it should not be used in PDF/A files for compliancy ...

Not much else to be said - hope that helps.

[kpm]

I was thinking that may be the issue. Thank you very much for your prompt response.

Regards,

Kevin

[kpm]

I can create an image using Macintosh PackBits RLE 24bpp and open it ok with BlueView. From BlueView I can save the image with LZW Compression and then BlueView can read that file ok. Something is not quite right creating the file. Can you humor me and test an LZW file that you created with BlueView. Maybe I am doing something wrong.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Kpm,

I'll pass the thanks on to John.

Do let us know if there's anything more that we can do to help!

[kpm]

Here are a couple of examples.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Thanks kpm,

we hope to have that looked into soon.

regards

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

Looks like BlueView doesn't like LZW stream created by the SDK.
Will try to look out what exactly it doesn't like and if it will fix it if that is possible.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

And we've also added a ticket to our internal system:
#1817: Tiff images unreadable by BlueView
So that we can properly track this, and will post back in this topic as soon as there are any further news.

Best,
Stefan

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

As we found it is a bug in BlueView's LZW decoder, so the best way is to report about this bug to Schlumberger.

[kpm]

Ok. Thank you for your looking into the matter.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

[kpm]

Since Schlumberger happens to be a competitor, we cannot suggest they repair their free viewer to look at our files. Plus the North Dakota Industrial Commision Oil and Gas Division uses Blue View to view our files, so they need to be compatible. We will have to look into another product that can generate files that meet the (wrong) specifications.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Kpm,

we completely understand and wish you the best of luck!

[kpm]

I can also open your tiff file in MS Paint, save as TIFF, then Blue View will read it ok.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello kpm,

Then it seems like Pain is using a different compression for TIFF files. I suspect that the files Paint and we produce are different in size.

Best,
Stefan

[kpm]

Yes, MSPaint not using LZW. Png seems to be making files smaller than LZW and BlueView reading them ok so far.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

[kpm]

Unfortunately, client still requesting tiff file types.
Can I change any of the options when creating my tiff file to get closer to the second batch of tiff parameters below?

Unreadable by BlueView:

SubFileType (1 Long): Zero
ImageWidth (1 Long): 1700
ImageLength (1 Long): 2001
BitsPerSample (3 Short): 8, 8, 8
Compression (1 Short): LZW
Photometric (1 Short): RGB
ImageDescription (17 ASCII): Warrior Tiff File
StripOffsets (1 Long): 8
SamplesPerPixel (1 Short): 3
RowsPerStrip (1 Long): 2001
StripByteCounts (1 Long): 181608
XResolution (1 Rational): 200
YResolution (1 Rational): 200
PlanarConfig (1 Short): Contig
ResolutionUnit (1 Short): Inch
Software (7 ASCII): Warrior
Predictor (1 Short): 1

Readable by BlueView:

SubFileType (1 Long): Page
ImageWidth (1 Long): 1700
ImageLength (1 Long): 2001
BitsPerSample (3 Short): 8, 8, 8
Compression (1 Short): LZW
Photometric (1 Short): RGB
ImageDescription (18 ASCII): Warrior Tiff File
StripOffsets (1 Long): 776
Orientation (1 Short): TopLeft
SamplesPerPixel (1 Short): 3
RowsPerStrip (1 Long): 2001
StripByteCounts (1 Long): 181857
XResolution (1 Rational): 200
YResolution (1 Rational): 200
PlanarConfig (1 Short): Contig
ResolutionUnit (1 Short): Inch
PageNumber (2 Short): 0, 0
Software (8 ASCII): Warrior
WangAnnotations (485 Byte): 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 5, 0, 0, 0, 164, 0,...

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi kpm,

That will need to be reviewed by someone in our dev team dealing with the TIFF image generation, though I can't make any promises if it would be possible to achieve those different settings with our SDK.

Best,
Stefan

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

Yes, you can change some parameters (like DPI, compression method, using predictors or not, etc.). To do that, you have to use functions IMG_PageSetFormatLongParameter, IMG_PageSetFormatDoubleParameter etc.

For example, to remove 'Predictor' tag, you need to call

Code: Select all

_XCPage page;  // zero page from the image; for multipaged formats like TIFF, you need to specify parameters for each page
IMG_PageClearFormatParameterValue(page0, 'PRED');

or to set resolution to 300 dpi:

Code: Select all

IMG_PageSetFormatLongParameter(page0, FP_ID_XDPI, 300);  // FP_ID_XDPI is equal to 'DPIX', see IXC_FormatParametersIDS enum values
IMG_PageSetFormatLongParameter(page0, FP_ID_YDPI, 300);

By the way, the problem is not with tags in these files, but with LZW stream itself, to be more exact, with the BlueView's LZW decoder.

Maybe it is better to use TIFF with another kind of compression? Say Flate (ZIP)

[kpm]

The answer at the moment is to create a png image which BlueView reads ok. Open that file in BlueView, then from that program, execute File->Save As with tiff LZW compression. File is then readable by BlueView and the North Dakota Industrial Commision Oil and Gas Division gets the file it wants with tiff compression.

[John - Tracker Supp]

Good to hear you found a work around ...

[kpm]

BlueView will read Tiff LZW compression files created from the FreeImage open source project located here:

http://freeimage.sourceforge.net/

Are you sure you are doing your LZW compression correctly?

Thanks

Kevin

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for your post, and then again - all the TIFF images we are generating open fine in any other application.
So without having the technical knowledge of the actual LZW implementation used - I'd say that we are creating correct files and it's BlueView that is incapable of handling those.

Regards,
Stefan

[kpm]

Sending you the lzw source just fyi.

Thanks for your prompt response.

Regards,

Kevin

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Thanks Kevin!

Cheers,
Stefan

[kpm]

I found another product that won't read files created with your Tiff LZW compression. http://www.weatherford.com/Products/Eva ... /index.htm. If I make a PNG file, open with BlueView, save as TIFF-LZW, and the PreView program will read that ok.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi kpm,

our devs took a look at this, they are pretty sure that the TIFF files created are up to standard, however they have committed to looking into this further to see if there is anything we should do differently when creating those images.

We'll update here when we have more.

hth

[kpm]

Thank you Paul

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Pleasure.

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

There is a set of test files to check TIFF implementation:

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/graphics/tiff

Unfortunately, the PreView Viewer you are referring to is crashing even when opening the sample LZW compressed file from ctan.org, so we cannot take this tool into account. It appears that PreView is not working correctly even with standard files so it's an issue with PreView not the TIFF files we produced.

Having said that, we did find a small change that we need to make and will do so, however I do not expect this to change the behaviour of PreView.

hth

[kpm]

Yes, that is exactly the issue. A file created from your product is not readable by two different image viewers that are used by our customers. So our customers are wondering why they cannot read the files that we produce.

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

Yes, that is exactly the issue.

No, I'm trying to say that this tool crashes not on our files, but on files from the standard test collection.

[kpm]

To make your files readable, I open them up with a FreeImage tool -> http://freeimage.sourceforge.net/, save it as TIFF LZW, and then the file is usable by BlueView and PreView. Very strange. FreeImage reads your files ok, but saving them again as Tiff LZW from FreeImage makes enough of a change to the file for BlueView and PreView to read.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Thanks for that work around kpm,