Random access via load library: VIPS Reference Manual

## Random access via load library

Some image file formats have libraries which allow true random access to image pixels. For example, libtiff lets you read any tile out of a tiled tiff image very quickly. Because the libraries allow true random access, libvips can simply hook the image load library up to the input of the operation pipeline.

These libraries are generally single-threaded, so only one thread may read at once, making them slower than simple direct access. Additionally, tiles are often compressed, meaning that each time a tile is fetched it must be decompressed. libvips keeps a cache of recently-decompressed tiles to try to avoid repeatedly decompressing the same tile.

libvips can load tiled tiff, tiled OpenEXR, FITS and OpenSlide images in this manner.