What's the application of multi subfiles in a single tiff file?

Question

I am confused by the feature of multiple/multi-page images (subfiles) per TIFF file .Can anyone give some application of this feature?

It seems if a tiff file contains more than one images, the normal image-viewer can't view the tiff file. So what's the difference between the multi-page feature and just archieving the multi image files into a single file by using command like 'tar'.

Answer 1

One application that I have come across is in diagnostic systems that produce multiple views that may need to be shown one on top of each other selectively. A single TIFF is loaded and then the user is presented with the ability to display/hide layers that may include information at different wavelengths, from different sensors and possibly layers of annotation markings.