Compression Software

[ALSOBROOK at BIOMED.MED.YALE.EDU]

From:	IN%"harper at convex.csc.FI"  4-DEC-1991 04:52:00.39
To:	IN%"software at genbank.bio.net"
CC:	
Subj:	RE: Compression Software


>In <1991Dec4.043820.7565 at alw.nih.gov> donnel at helix.nih.gov (Donald A. Lehn) writ
>es:
  
>>       I'm afraid that you will be hard pressed to compress these files.
>>I'm pretty sure that they are TIFF files and as such are about as
>>compressed as they can get.  (You can compress the header info though and
>>that is how you squeezed the 3Mb out of the file.)
 
>This is also true for GIF files, they are already compressed, so there is
>not much point trying to compress them further... and in some cases if
>you do try it you will get a BIGGER file than you started with.
 
>>--
>>Donald A. Lehn, Ph.D.                      Phone: (301) 496-2885
>>Bldg.37 Rm 3D20                            FAX:   (301) 496-8419
>>National Cancer Institute / NIH            Email: donnel at helix.nih.gov
>>Bethesda MD 20892
--
>   Rob Harper                     /   E-mail:          harper at convex.csc.fi
>   Finnish State Computer Centre  /   Molbio/software: harper at nic.funet.fi
>   P.O. Box 40, SF-02101 Espoo    /   Telephone:       +358 0 457 2076
>   Finland                        /   Fax:             +358 0 457 2302

There is a program available for PCs running DOS -- the program is called JPEG;
it compresses  GIF files (not sure about TIFF) -- the compession ratio depends
on how much  quality (i.e. resolution) you want retained. It easily compresses
by a factor of two with very little image degradation. I don't know what other
platforms it can run on, or if there are any file size limits, but I will post
the name/address of the developer (it's shareware, so you only pay if you want
to keep it, and a very reasonable price at that!).

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