i just searched the forum and found a post dating back in 2005 of someone looking for a maya iff viewer... well, i'm looking for one, too.
is there anyone who created a viewer plugin supporting the maya iff image format? this is the only image format that is missing in my diropus environment, then i can even get rid of my usual image viewer.
n.b.: maya iff is not the same as the amiga iff format!
I don't think anyone has written a plugin but I found what looks like a fairly simple library for reading the format so I could try to put one together.
Could you provide a few sample images to test against?
sure. i attached some images. one grayscale, one with transparency & colored one. i hope this helps - just ask for more samples, if you need them. i'm also ready for beta testing if there's need for it.
iff_samples.zip (1.31 MB)
Give this a try and let me know how well it works:
(Edit: New version linked below.)
I've only tested it with the three images you sent so it hasn't been tested with 8-bit (grayscale or alpha-only? not sure what it would be used for) or 24-bit (i.e. RGB without an alpha channel) images.
I haven't tested the x64 version yet either but it should work. I've tested the x64 version and it works too.
Very impressive Leo ! ( as always )
What, no easter egg this time ?
For instance -- Drag n Drop Dopus.exe to Raw Viewers -> Camera Profile -- in your #$%&* pluginMore on that plugin at Gus's last post.
very nice! here my test results:
i have a directory with around 7'000 maya iff images, i entered this one in 'single' layout mode and then switched to the 'images' layout -> crash, see screenshot 1.
i rendered a maya16iff file which worked nearly fine, but there are some artifacts visible -> see screenshot 2.
i also attached the original maya16iff file for your convenience (redsphere.iff, which has 16bits per color channel).
fantastic progress! looking forward to testing a next version.
and another interesting mayaiff file: 24bit, no alpha. i couldn't render out a pure 8 bit alpha image yet, i have to check how to achieve this.
mayaiff_24bit.zip (27.9 KB)
New version which should fix both those problems:
(Edit: Newer version below.)
Notes:
[ul][li]redsphere.iff seems to be 8-bits per sample rather than 16-bits. I'm pretty sure the plugin still won't work with 16-bit images but I don't have any to test against.
[/li]
[li]Greyscale images might work but haven't been tested.
[/li]
[li]The problem with redsphere.iff was because whatever encoded it compressed two tiles in the image to a size that was larger than they'd be if stored uncompressed. The decoder assumed nothing would do that (as it's very silly!) but I've changed that. (FWIW the Maya IFF plugin that comes with Photoshop CS3 would not load that image at all.)
[/li]
[li]The crash was due to me being dumb/tired/ill and not noticing something obvious. 
[/li][/ul]
here my test results (windows xp sp3, vista ultimate):
yay! we're there - i'm really grateful for this plugin, you made my day.
notes:
yes, it's correct that photoshop doesn't read/ write mayaiff files correctly, this has been an issue for years that has never been fixed by adobe. that's why all maya users download this import plugin here:
highend3d.com/downloads/tool ... CS-61.html
i really wonder whether maya saves its format in an exotic way or if photoshop just doesn't follow the file format specs.
i'll test the plugin for a while now and let you know if i encounter any further issues.
Here's a very minor update which makes it report the correct depth for 16-bit images. (If you look in the description column the old one will say WxHx32 for 16-bit RGBA images when it should say WxHx64 since 16-bits for each of RGBA = 64-bits total.)
32-bit: maya_iff_1003_32bit.zip
64-bit: maya_iff_1003_64bit.zip
Source code: maya_iff_1003_source.zip
It seems like the format stores 16-bit images in a way that 8-bit decoders understand/truncate automatically (unless I've missed something) so I guess we got that for free. 
I realised that I could save 16-bit Maya IFF images using Photoshop so I was able to work out the thing in the header that indicates whether the image is 8-bit or 16-bit and correct the reported depth.
FWIW, that Phtoshop plug-in has the same problems with two corrupted squares in redsphere.iff that the first version of my plugin had. Definitely seems like the encoder (Renderman I think) did something weird with that file.
(That plug-in also doesn't give you an alpha channel unlike the "IFF Format.8BI" plugin from the Photoshop DVD, which also lets you read Amiga IFF files, though I doubt many care about that, heh.)
Leo, when do you sleep?
You are amazing. Thanks for that plugin.
leo, you really rock. i'm just amazed that i sent you this feature request and 1 day (!) later, i already had this viewer plugin. no wonder i bought 5 licenses of directory opus for my company, everyone loves your tool here.
