"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> Note that most image editors create
> 8-bit images, not 16-bit.  This means that no matter how LARGE your image
> map, the grey-scale values will still be "divided up" into a set number of
> finite steps. That is, changing the size or resolution of the image won't
> alter this min. to max. tonal value. So even with a large-size (or
> high-resolution) image, you'll still probably see some "stepping" in the
> vertical direction of the generated heightfield, particularly when you
> scale up the HF in that direction. 16-bit images have MUCH finer grey-scale
> "steps." But in my experience, even Photoshop doesn't create or edit 16-bit
> images. POV -Ray itself does, strangely enough!  (See the comments made
> earlier.)

I'm pretty sure the whole NetPBM package can work with 16-bit .ppm images,
although some programs may not function correctly with high bit depths. See
http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/README

NetPBM is the 'home' of the .ppm family of image formats. These command-line
programs are quite stable, having been around for ages. They are very handy
for processing huge images & batch processing.

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