Breaking the 2GB limit for image files

[Maxim]

With the release of LV 2017 and therefore Vision 2017 I expected the 2GB limit to be gone.

Unfortunately and with great diappointment I have found out that this was not the case and it's still not possible to create or handle image files greater than 2GB even in LV 64bit 2017.

Latest linear image sensors can go up to 32.000 pixels (per line and per channel) and we currently use a 16K sensor in our camera and easily can exceed the 2GB limit when we scan long materials specially if 16bit precision is required and RGB color is also needed. This means that we had to implement several tricks in order to break down the image size (we process each RGB color layer as a separate image file and divide the image in several chunks) but we are still anyway experiencing many bottlenecks and are frustrated in the software development because we cannot use many of the exhisting Vision tools that are limited to 2GB. And of course VISION/IMAQ libraries cannot handle image processing when image information is distributed into different images and therefore we had to write our own libraries (even for image viewing) so as to handle the images properly. 

Furthermore, despite the TIFF format is limited to 4GB (not 2 GB) it's relatively easy to split the image file into separate TIFF files while it's not easy to handle or process image data in separate chunks or channels. Furthermore there are also other image formats that allows for very large file sizes (i.e. BigTIFF which is extremely easy to implement as it's only a 64bit extension of the currently 32bit limit in the TIFF format).

So my suggestion is: to break the 2GB limit and finally allow handling very large image files directly into Labview and the Vision libraries !!!

[GregSands]

I agree with all of this suggestion.  It seems absurd to need to work around an image size restriction in a 64-bit program.

[mattvx]

I agree with this as well. Very frustrating to save tiff stacks >4gb. BigTIFF implementation in LabVIEW would be a great solution. 

[GregSands]

Any comments from NI as to whether this is likely in the next year or two?

[Brad]

We will be releasing an update in VDM 2019 that will add new AVI codecs and remove the 2GB limit for AVI files, but there are not currently any plans to update the image file limit of 2GB. I would recommend talking with your sales representative so we can learn more about your use case and the business need for this feature.

Thanks,

Brad

[GregSands]

Despite the title of this idea talking about image files, the initial suggestion was equally or more about the size of a Vision image in memory being restricted to 2GB - that's the limitation that I find frustrating in 64-bit LabVIEW.  That limitation means, as the original poster said, either working around by handling smaller image chunks at a time, or not using the VDM at all for image processing.  My use case is similar to the original poster, in using a camera that can acquire a 6GB image in <30 seconds - I can stream that to disk in a raw format, but for processing, it looks as though I'll need to use something other than LabVIEW.

[Maxim]

I just want to comment again after 4 years since I posted this.

Labview 2017, 2018, 2019 and now even 2020 have been released in the meantime. Still the 2GB image size limit apply !

Still no sign that this will even be considered, the original post from 2016 is still marked as a "new idea" and no comment or reply from NI.

I'm not happy about that.

After so many years I have to handle larger image files in chunks with all the limitation and problems related to it. I must process, view and save the image files using my own written library and cannot use Labview instead.

A few years ago we were the only one to have high resolution linear camera (trilinear 14.000 pixels). Now all vision camera manufacturers can provide a 16K pixels (even color) linear camera. But they will not use Labview or not without a complaint with this kind of limits.