[Gimp-user] Any plans to improve TIF support?

[rpdayton <forums gimpusers com>]

Perhaps I've mis-spoken.
Government contractors must follow a mil spec for digital storage of technical
drawings. The common term is "blueprint," but that word is actually used
specifically for the old ammonia-stenched physical paper dimensioned drawings. 
The modern-day term is "Drawing," and they are now generated by a CAD 3D
modelling package.  As such, they are dimensionally accurate, monochrome files,
and can (in some cases) be used as a gauge to compare the physical part to by
laying the part on the printed-out drawing.
This means the drawings (the digital copy) is essentially a picture of the CAD
drawing, stored at 1:1.  This picture is a perfect candidate for a
vector-specific file type, but the mil spec mandates that all dimensionally -
accurate files be stored in a 1:1 losless format, specifically TIFF.  So every
component of every government-contracted piece of hardware has a TIF file for
distribution.  Every rivet on every fighter jet, every hinge pin on every
vehicle door, and every pipe fitting in the Pentagon has a TIFF file, and
they've digitized their libraries going back decades.
Because the automotive and aerospace industries cross paths regularly, those
industries have their own specs as well, including the commercial side of their
business.  So Ford, GMC, Chrysler, Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, and so on, and their
suppliers (All the way down to a hardware chain) also conduct their
manufacturing contracting in TIFF.
In the Automotive and Aerospace supply chain, the majority of these drawings are
scaled at 48" height, and somewhere around 48" to 240" width depending on the
component(s), and file sizes of 1-2 meg are pretty standard.
I've never worked with TIFF files for any reason other than working with
engineering drawings.  A project manager at Kodak told me even they moved away
from that format several years ago.  I honestly cannot imagine the TIFF format
is used for many other purposes.
The first step is to create a 'reference' copy of the drawing file in a format
that can be worked with more easily.  Adding manufacturing notes, tabulated
references to every dimension for inspection purposes, and so on - this is
nearly impossible to do with the native TIFF format, but relatively simple with
SVG or even PDF.  We have an open account with our local Kinkos to do these file
conversions for us, as it is cheaper than purchasing a bunch of seats of Adobe.
GIMP generally worked well for me with most photographs, so I suggested it at
work a few years ago as a way of reducing costs.  Unfortunately, it was unable
to print these drawings; it would crash.  Rather than crashing, GIMP was updated
to generate an error box.  At the time, this was a deal breaker, and we did not
investigate a corporate license.
I tried again earlier this week, figuring that after several years, the printing
functionality would have been updated.  But now the error box does not appear,
it just freezes.  Trying to export the file into a more user-friendly format
fails because of a size error.
Maybe my view is biased; there are hundreds, if not thousands, of manufacturing
and engineering companies in the Cincinnati - Indianapolis - Detroit triangle
that support these industries, and they all live and die by their ability to
work with these files.  I assumed being able to support this file format would
be only natural, as this appears to be a fairly major percentage of the files
using this format.
I do not want to create a new TIFF file.  Good lord, I'd prefer they whole
system change to just transmitting CAD data, but the mil-spec forces it to be
the way it is.
If GIMP has a 48K (or whatever the number is) upper limit on pixel count, that
is fine, I'll withdraw the bug report, as it is not actually something broken,
and I will try not to assume :)

-- 
rpdayton (via www.gimpusers.com/forums)