tiff specification for 16-bit grayscale

Question

for an xray-application I need a 16-bit grayscale tiff image. However, reading through the tiff specification (Revision 6.0, Final — June 3, 1992), I just found, that 4 and 8 bit are specified for grayscale images (cf Section 4).

Is there a newer specification and where can I get it? Or can someone please explain me the 16-bit grayscale specification, such that I can code it (in C/C++ and Java)? Is it just setting BitsPerSample = 16 or must I do something else?

Thanks

Answer 1

libtiff supports 16 bpp images. Such images, produced by libtiff, are recognized by another programs, such as ImageJ - you can use it for testing. libtiff library is available here http://www.libtiff.org/ and can be used in C/C++ programs.