title: How to read a big tif file in python?
body: <p>I'm loading a tiff file from <a href="http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/DOCS/DistFromCoast/" rel="noreferrer">http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/DOCS/DistFromCoast/</a></p>
  
  <pre><code>from PIL import Image
  im = Image.open('GMT_intermediate_coast_distance_01d.tif')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The data is large (<code>im.size=(36000, 18000)</code> 1.3GB) and conventional conversion doesn't work; i.e, <code>imarray.shape</code> returns <code>()</code> </p>
  
  <pre><code>import numpy as np 
  imarray=np.zeros(im.size)
  imarray=np.array(im)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How can I convert this tiff file to a <code>numpy.array</code>? </p>