Does anyone Know how to deal with '.BIF' image files?

Hi I am trying to work with images files that have the extention ".BIF" they are reading ok I think but when I view the file I am clearly losing something. Does anyone know anything about handling these file types and have some suggestions? Thanks!

[Ashish Uthama]

Could you elabore on "they are reading ok"? What function/process are you using currently?

[Jessica jones]

They are scanned microscope images. I was able to read the file in with "imread" and I can view it with "imshow" the reason I suspect there is more to them is that I know that this file should contain very high resolution image data however what I am viewing is very very low resolution. This also doesn't match with the file size; the file is huge ~1.5 GB but has about as much resolution as a very small file. I suspect that what I am reading is a portion of the file like a thumbnail, I also suspect that this may just be a file type that can't be read with MatLab properly. I am going to try and get the person who is taking them to get a more common file type but I don't know that this is possible.

[Walter Roberson]

What does imfinfo() have to say about them?

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Never heard of it. What makes them? Can't you work with more standard file formats like PNG? You can find some information on similar-sounding formats (BFF and BIFF) here: http://www.wotsit.org/list.asp?al=B

Answer 2

[Jeff E]

Unfortunately I do not. I can tell you, however, that these are most likely a proprietary format coming from a scanner made from Ventana, and the image data you are looking at is the top layer of an image pyramid. The person acquiring these images should have an option to scan in a different, flat format like JGP2000. You could try contacting Ventana to see if they will give you a converter, but to read the native format you would probably have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, or reverse engineer the format.