IDL 8.2: Problem with WRITE_TIFF on Windows
IDL 8.2 can read and write BigTIFF files. On Windows systems, there was a bug in the initial release of IDL 8.2 that caused IDL to save all TIFF files as BigTIFF files. Therefore, the TIFF files generated by these IDL 8.2 distributions would not open in most graphic viewing programs. For example, if you have an IDL 8.2 installation that has this bug, you can enter the following line into IDL:
write_tiff, 'test.tif', bindgen(512,512)
The resulting file 'test.tif' will be unreadable in the following programs (and many more):
- Windows Photo Viewer - Error says "No preview available"
- Irfan View
- Paintshop Pro 5
- IDL 8.1 - The error message says "% READ_TIFF: Not a TIFF file, bad version number 43 (0x2b)"
A fix to this bug has been implemented in IDL 8.2.1. If you are experiencing this problem, please follow the procedure below:
1) Click on "My Account",
2) Log into the website
3) Click on Downloads
4) Click on the "All Downloads" tab and download the latest IDL release.
Reviewed 8/25/2014 by DS