IPCV and IPCV are based on the same library OpenCV, and there is everything in OpenCV to open various types of TIFF files. However imread (in IPCV and scicv) at the Scilab level has a poor API as it does not have the same versatile options as OpenCV’s Imread.
But may I insist : can you post here a TIFF file that IPCV does not read ? I have tested latest version with some example TIFF files and IPCV has read them without any problem.
I don’t see why there could be any mess around with imread(). The actual imread() code was faultly and the proposed patch allows to read RGB TIFF without interfering with other formats. There is no need for a new dedicated function (you can ask Chin Luh Tan if you want, but I mainly maintain IPCV now so he will probably agree for any fix that improves user experience).