Create an IMAGINE Image File List (.fls) for use in MosaicTool and MosaicPro.

I originally created this procedure while at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) Center for Geographic Information Systems.

The structure of .fls format is documented in ERDAS IMAGINE as follows:
n number-of-images
i reference-image
0 imagename_1
1 imagename_2
.
.
.
n-1 imagename_n

An example is as follows:
3 number-of-images
1 reference-image
0 R:\Data\wasia1_mss.img
1 R:\Data\wasia2_mss.img
2 R:\Data\wasia3_tm.img

How do I create a .fls for all TIFF images in a directory and in all sub-directories?

First, use a DOS Command Window
1. Open a DOS Command Window
2. Change to the appropriate directory
3. Use "dir" command as follows: dir *.tif /b /s > mosaic-list.txt
(The /s parameter looks in sub-directories; the /b makes the list 'bare')

Next, use MS Excel to organize the list
4. Open "mosaic-list.txt" in Excel
5. Insert a column to the left of the list
6. Insert 2 rows at the top of the list
7. Add 0 in the first column of the third row
8. Add =A3+1 to the first column of the forth row
9. Copy formula from #8 above to all rows with images
10. Copy the number for the last image to the first column of the first row
11. Select an image number for the reference image (can change in Mosaic later) and put in the first column of the second row.
12. Find / Replace all \" with "/", in the image column.
13. Save as the file to a text file to your desired txt filename.

Next, use MS Word to remove tabs introduced by Excel:
14. Replace tab "^t" with a space " " (do not enter quote marks)
15. Save as text with the extension of .fls

Finally, open in Mosaic Tool or Mosaic.