Re: The GIF format as intellectual property
David Koblas (koblas@point.HomePages.com)
Tue, 10 Jan 1995 03:20:12 +0100
> Again, a new format need not be defined. There are loads of valid arguments
> that could be put forward on the merits of 3A or 3B, but the labour of
> creating a new format is a spurious one. Just use an existing format that has
> an alpha channel. TIFF 6 springs to mind as the obvious candidate: AVS X image
> files, Photoshop files etc are other, less suitable examples. TIFF does of
> course have a freely available library which can be linked to, so inline
> TIFF should be fairly easy to add.
TIFF is good
TIFF supports 1bit to 24 bit images
TIFF supports many styles of compression
TIFF supports real alpha chanels (transparency)
TIFF supports JPEG compression
TIFF supports X, Y, and LWZ compression
TIFF supports comments
TIFF supports copyrights
TIFF has a freely available library and is well debugged
TIFF is supported by most all paint applications (GIF, JPEG are not)
TIFF is good
Remember the pattent doesn't affect reading image formats, so LWZ compression
don't have to be licensed by the client.
David
--koblas@homepages.com