[R] Converting 16-bit to 8-bit encoding?

[Matt Shotwell]

On 04/21/2011 10:36 AM, Brian Buma wrote:
> Hello all-
>
> I have a question related to encoding.  I'm using a seperate program which
> takes either 16 bit or 8 bit (flat binary files) as inputs (they are raster
> satellite imagery and the associated quality files), but can't handle both
> at the same time.  Problem is the quality and the image come in different
> formats (quality- 8bit, image- 16bit).  I need to switch the encoding on the

I think some more detail about these files is necessary. What do these 
16/8 bit quantities represent? Are these files just a sequence of such 
quantities, or is there meta information (i.e. image dimension)?

> quality files to 16 bit, without altering anything else (they are img files
> right now).  I imagine this is a fairly simply process, but I haven't been

Does 'img files' indicate that these files are formatted according to a 
standard?. Finally, are you using some R code to manipulate these files? 
Have an example, including data?

> able to find a package or anything which can tell me how to do it- perhaps
> I'm searching the wrong terms, but I did look.  Is there any methods to do
> this quickly?  Ideally, the solution would involve reading in a list of
> files and replacing the original with the new, 16 bit version, as I have
> over 300 files to convert.  I hope that's clear.  Thanks in advance!
>


-- 
Matthew S Shotwell   Assistant Professor           School of Medicine
                      Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University