I had some frustrations with file sizes. It would seem that major slow-downs and/or problems loading the files occur when my antivirus is running. I turn it off, and the bmps load quickly. I'm wondering if it's chocking trying to scan a 2 GB file. I have found that, when loading a file, the menu bar grays out and the File/Processing/Help become inactive if it's loading properly; if it's not working, it just stays the same and nothing changes.

Anyway, my resolution tests:

40000 px width -> can output in jpg/bmp/png format
30000 px width -> doesn't even try to load it (?)
29999 px width -> doesn't even try to load it (?)
25000 px width -> loads fine (WITH Antivirus OFF)
20000 px width -> loads fine (WITH Antivirus OFF)
15000 px width -> loads fine (takes about 20x longer with antivirus ON)
10000 px width -> loads fine

In the batch file (GMapImageCutter.bat) I adjusted the memory allocated to the jar file to 2048M and 4096M respectively. I'm not sure if this has anythign to do with the above loading limitations or not - but I thought I change them from the default values 1/4 the size in case it helped.

My latest attempt is from a 25000px * 18229px BMP file (~1.3 GB file). If printed at 300dpi, this would come out at 83.33" x 60.76". I could live with that. Each pixel would represent ~4km square for the map scale I'm using. That means my rivers are way too wide as seen, are way too wide, but that's fine with me in this case. It's a balance of appearance and potential realism in my view.

I selected a zoom level of 8 which appears to create 21845 tiles used to create the image at its different zoom levels.

It took ~12 minutes to generate the tiles and html file.

This attempt was, in addition to testing maximum resolution, a test to see which font sizes would work/be legible when zoomed in. As a result, youll see a number of text groupings all over the map. Each group contains the font Papyrus at 1 to 100 pts in size. For my purposes, the 2.5 is the minimum I'd use with 100% clarity. 2 is legible, but I'll try to avoid using it. This will allow me to label fairly small details, etc. which makes me quite happy.


The link to view this version is:Abebe - 25000px x 18229px Map with Text size test

To make life easy, I zip up the files and upload the one file which is then extracted on the web server itself (takes about 12 minutes to upload vs. who knows how long for 21000 individual files). This is a Bluehost account for those wanting to guage speed etc. The zip file was ~82MB set to store (not bother trying to compress).

If you have any comments on the speed of access, etc, I'm curious. I'm using Firefox 3.0x to view things just fine. Does it work for you in your browser?

As well, I'd scaled up the original image from ~10000px to 40000px adjusted a few settings, and then scaled back down. Is the end result of definition/clarity acceptable? I'm trying for a watercolour-base with ink/chalk pastel for detail.