Merging TIFFs into a Multi-Page Tiff

[soyab husein]

We have the following input data file:

KEY File name OrderNo.

001 001_1.tiff 900001
002 002_1.tiff 900002
002 002_2.tiff 900002
002 002_3.tiff 900002
003 003_1.tiff 900003
004 004_1.tiff 900004
004 004_2.tiff 900004

etc

We need to write a Perl script where for multiple records with the same KEY (eg 002 and 004) we need to merge the single record TIFFs into a new file (eg merge 002_1.tiff + 002_2.tiff + 002_3.tiff = 002_new.tiff and also 004_1.tiff + 004_2.tiff into 004_new.tiff).
Any ideas how we can merge the tiff files and also read ahead to the next record to see if KEY value has changed - on change of KEY merge ALL the single records and create a new file.
We'll really appreciate any advice.
Thanks.
Soyab

[cndg]

I'll leave the easy stuff (indicated between *asterixes* below) to you. Here's the hard part:-

use Imager;
my @images;
 
while (*loop_over_your_input*) {
 my $img = Imager->new(file=>$tiffile) or die Imager->errstr();
 if(*ID is different*) {
   Imager->write_multi({ file=> $outputf }, @images) or die "Cannot write: ", Imager->errstr;
   @images=($img); # next one to do
 } else {
   push @images,$img;
 }
}
# *Don't forget to do the last one (hint - add ||!$onepastend++ to your loop above)
 

I'm aware this is an antique question, but it's top in google for this subject, so hopefully my reply will help others :-)

[miller]

Thanks for the info. Additionally, one could use Image Magick to merge the related tiffs into a single image.

- Miller