[fitsbits] Re: FITS vs. TIFF (or other image formats)

[Paul Schlyter]

In article <tviganlgcs4r48 at corp.supernews.com>,
Rick Armstrong <careful at times.com> wrote:
>
>Hi Paul,
>
>> FITS is a general data storage
>> format, not just an image format
>
>Aha!,  makes sense.
>
>> Regarding "some other format":
>> which other format were you thinking of?
>
>.bmp, .jpeg, ...etc.,  any of the other myriad image file formats.

They are all image formats, not general data storage formats.

FITS doesn't store images in a particularly efficient way though,
mostly because it's an ASCII format.  However being an ASCII format
means it's easily transported between widely different computers.
And I believe that was one major aim of FITS: to be portable between
as many computers as possible, including several mainframes which
nowadays are considered obsolete.



-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40,  S-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
e-mail:  pausch at saaf dot se   or    paul.schlyter at ausys dot se
WWW:     http://hotel04.ausys.se/pausch    http://welcome.to/pausch