[Mapserver-users] Using tiffs without GDAL

[AMC Story]

Hi everyone,

I'm a little confused about the types of raster that can be displayed without 
having to compile mapserver with GDAL.  From the documentation, I took it that 
only grayscale tiffs could be displayed, but without GDAL I managed to follow 
the tutorial example which displays a colour tiff image.  Is the fact that this 
image is colour indexed vs rgb significant here?  (not that I know what colour 
indexed means.....!).  

Also, and apologies if this is slightly off topic, but I was hoping someone 
might know how I could convert a ArcInfo grid (created from the etop05 dataset) 
to a colour tiff of the type that the basic mapserver can display.  My problem 
is that even trying to convert to a grayscale image doesn't seem to be working 
(I'm using the gridimage command in ArcInfo), as the output image has lost all 
of the height variation over the land and displays them as solid black.  Has 
anyone does this kind of thing before?  I'd like to avoid having to use GDAL if 
possible, but I really would like to be able to display a colour image as a 
background layer.

Any advice would be really appreciated as this problem has been driving me mad 
for days!

Thanks once again for all your help and support - it really has been invaluable.

Ali