TIFF CHANGE INFORMATION

Current Version: v4.1.0
Previous Version: v4.0.10
Master Download Site: download.osgeo.org, directory pub/libtiff
Master HTTP Site #1: http://www.simplesystems.org/libtiff/
Master HTTP Site #2: http://libtiff.maptools.org/

This document describes the changes made to the software between the previous and current versions (see above). If you don't find something listed here, then it was not done in this timeframe, or it was not considered important enough to be mentioned. The following information is located here. A change summary is also provided by the ChangeLog file included in the release package and by the Git commit history:

- Major Changes
- Changes in the software configuration
- Changes in libtiff
- Changes in the tools
- Changes in the contrib area

MAJOR CHANGES:

- Make defer strile offset/bytecount loading available at runtime and add per-strile offset/bytecount loading capabilities. Part of this commit makes the behaviour that was previously met when libtiff was compiled with -DDEFER_STRILE_LOAD available for default builds when specifying the new 'D' (Deferred) TIFFOpen() flag. In that mode, the [Tile/Strip][ByteCounts/Offsets] arrays are only loaded when first accessed. This can speed-up the opening of files stored on the network when just metadata retrieval is needed. Another addition is the capability of loading only the values of the offset/bytecount of the strile of interest instead of the whole array. This is enabled with the new 'O' (Ondemand) flag of TIFFOpen() (which implies 'D'). The public TIFFGetStrileOffset[WithErr]() and TIFFGetStrileByteCount[WithErr]() functions have been added to API. They are of particular interest when using sparse files (with offset == bytecount == 0) and you want to detect if a strile is present or not without decompressing the data, or updating an existing sparse file.
- The BigTIFF writer now optimizes file size by using 32-bit LONG values (rather than 64-bit) where it is reasonable and safe to do so. Likewise, the 16-bit SHORT type is used when possible for StripByteCounts/TileByteCounts.

CHANGES IN THE SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION:

- The WIN32 build now uses tif_win32.c when building with CMake.
- Properly set value of HOST_FILLORDER to LSB2MSB for Windows CMake builds. It was not being properly set!

CHANGES IN LIBTIFF:

- Changes in the libtiff library may be viewed on-line at Libtiff Library Commits.
- New function TIFFReadFromUserBuffer() which replaces the use of TIFFReadEncodedStrip()/TIFFReadEncodedTile() when the user can provide the buffer for the input data, for example when he wants to avoid libtiff to read the strile offset/count values from the [Strip|Tile][Offsets/ByteCounts] array.
- New functions TIFFDeferStrileArrayWriting() and TIFFForceStrileArrayWriting() Those advanced writing functions must be used in a particular sequence to make their intended effect. Their aim is to control when/where the [Strip/Tile][Offsets/ByteCounts] arrays are written into the file. The purpose of this is to generate 'cloud-optimized geotiff' files where the first KB of the file only contain the IFD entries without the potentially large strile arrays. Those are written afterwards.

CHANGES IN THE TOOLS:

- Changes in the libtiff utilities may be viewed on-line at Libtiff Tools Commits

CHANGES IN THE CONTRIB AREA:

- Changes in the libtiff contrib area may be viewed on-line at Libtiff Contrib Commits