I downloaded a GeoTIFF from NRCS. I've opened it with IrfanView and it looks just great. According to IrfanView, this file has 256 unique colors, ranging from what is pretty dark (but probably not black) to pretty light (but probably not white) but that might be coincidental since for "original colors" it reports 32 bits per pixel. (I'm not really sure how to read this particular detail.) Compression is LZW, Grayscale.
Expectation:
When I attach it in Microstation, I should be able to see all the same detail as I do in IrfanView.
Problem:
When I attach it in Microstation, the file displays as blank.
If I look at changing the transparency parameter, I get a list of colors 0 (black) to 255 (white). If I set transparency to 0, everything is affected by transparency. If I set transparency to anything else, everything is unaffected by transparency. I wonder if that suggests that colors are assigned in the file as a floating point number from 0 to 0.999, and Microstation is reading that as 0s across the board.
If I'm right, how can I tell Microstation to load the file properly? Or using whatever other tools that may exist, how can I convert this file to what Microstation is expecting?
Other materials:
https://docs.bentley.com/LiveContent/web/MicroStation%20Help-v13/en/GUID-B01CA508-6A59-BBC7-D597-79F63255FB5C.html shows that Microstation supports different versions of TIFF files:
(I realize that this particular article is for the CONNECT version, but I think it's reasonable to guess that it can apply to older versions of Microstation as well.)
I'm using the Microstation that is built in with Power Geopak .878.
It may be worth noting that in Microstation, under Image properties, it does acknowledge LZW compression and grayscale color mode.
And also that in IrfanView, I can save the exact same file with LZW compression and the palette and all pages (not knowing what all of these things mean, necessarily), and it shows up just fine with all 256 colors properly rendered.
Since this is a GeoTIFF, I'd rather not do that, but it is something of a fix. Can I tell Microstation something that will correct this in the original file?
Hello Derek,
Will you please share your test case. so i can study and understand issue better .
Thanks & Rg
Harshad
I'm trying to upload my TIF files, but the system keeps reporting that an error occurred.
After doing another search, I see a mention of Microstation's batch conversion. I tried using it. It converted the file successfully to a 256-color iTIFF, but now all 256 colors are black. I decided to use File > Save as on the raster manager's menu, selecting 256 colors, with the same all-black result.
In my view, this still stands as a visualization problem, but obviously not an immediate one, considering the solution I provided in my first response to my own original post. A user should not have to open a file in IrfanView, save it in an almost identical format (presumably losing geolocation information), and then finally load it into Microstation.
That said, in my particular application of this GeoTIFF, one of the best uses I could have for this GeoTIFF is to process it as a terrain model.
Hi Derek,
I agree with Harshad that uploading an example of the TIF file would be very helpful. Here's a link to Bentley's Secure File Upload where you can send your test case.
The TIFF format can contain a multitude of different types of data simultaneously, including raster, vector, alpha channel, multiple layers, geo-referencing data, etc... Because of this versatility, it is difficult to support all possible variations. While MicroStation is able to handle most images without issue there are occasions when it is unable to.
Here's a link to a recent post in the MicroStation forum which may help you make use of your image.
Regards,Ron
They are uploaded. The larger file is the original that I downloaded from NRCS. The other is the one I created in the conversion.
Upon using the free version of Geoviewer, all I see--in a practical sense--is a way to overlay the GeoTIFF onto OpenStreetMap.