[Gdal-dev] Import WorldClim data byte issue

[Markus Neteler]

hi,

we tried to import the worldclim tile data (generic format BIL)
from
http://www.worldclim.org/tiles.php

Unfortunately the result ranges from 0-65535.
The page http://www.worldclim.org/format.htm describes
"The data files (.BIL) are sequential binary files in which
 values are stored line by line from the upper-left to the
 lower-right corner. Each cell (pixel) is an integer value
 (2 bytes; -32768..32767).
"

Do I need postprocessing (such as r.mapcalc in GRASS) to
read these maps or is there another nice trick?

thanks
markus