VB6 48-bit color

[kevinthenerd]

I know the human eye can't tell color depth beyond 24 bits per pixel, but this is for my job as a research assistant...

We're trying to take a picture of something with a Canon Digital Rebel XT. We want to use the RAW mode to capture 16 bits per color channel for improved precision in our color measurements.

I want to write some Visual Basic 6 code that can read TIFF or CR2 files in their native 48-bit color and extract the individual 16-bit RGB values from each pixel. Can someone help me with the structure of a TIFF or CR2 file? I can already do this with 24-bit bitmaps, but TIFF files are a totally different story. Is there software out there that can convert 48-bit TIFFS to 48-bit bitmaps? Does the bitmap file format support more than 24 bits per pixel?

(I have access to some software that can convert a CR2 file to a 48-bit TIFF, but it's a little tedious. We'll be dealing with thousands of 8-megapixel images, and it's a LOT of processing time that I'd really rather automate.)


Thanks.

 

[kevinthenerd]

bump

 

[CTho9305]

24 bits is certainly inadequate (requires Mozilla or Firefox, maybe Opera, not MSIE).

 

[Mark R]

This may or may not be helpful, but .NET languages (e.g. VB.NET) have built in support/conversion for 48 bit TIFF.

There are a few buglets though - there is no built in API to read a 48 bit colour value from a 48bit colour bitmap! You have to access pixel values by reading the memory buffer directly.

 

[xtknight]

Would this be of any help?

http://www.herdsoft.com/ti/davincie/imex6pq0.htm

Maybe you could convert that code to VB6 somehow or otherwise I can try to. You can definitely access the API from VB though.