DPI vs. PPI - What's the difference?

[Gamerprinter]

Knowing that I have an older version of PS with a limitation of 30,000 pixels in every dimension, first I cropped the original exterior map to just the compound the octogonal walls and everything within and a few outside trees.

I opened and rescaled the map in PS without resampling and ended up with a map file at 200 pixels = 5 feet. Conversely, the non-essential DPI data is 7.25 dots per inch. Still the file is 25.5 MB in size and in PNG format.

I feel this is still too large, however, I can upload into my FTP account if anyone (RP specifically) wants to download it for their own uses.

Once I get an upgraded version of GIMP I'll probably be able to do the entire map, of course the file size would still get much larger.

Thoughts?

[Robbie]

Wow...see, for stuff liek this I think targetting VTT with maps of this scale woudl require some forethought...and I'm not slighting your process at all, becuse this all came up after your map was 80% or so done...but forethought would need to be in place to map the subject in sections...

Again though, this takes me back to thinking about the google maps api and how they handle the growing scale of the street level map...I imagine they are definitely usign a vector tool to create the street maps...but they're rendered in various different scales for the tile server...Each tile is 256x256 and the google api does all the work of placing the tiles in order and together...its pretty impressive, and I think a slicing tool would be perfect for that if a VTT took advantage of a tile server for maps...something to think about at least...

In other news...I'm so very glad to see that this conversation is staying professional and mature. There's obviously going to be differing opinions, and there's nothign wrong with being headstrong about being corrected, but the fact that this stayed mature makes me very happy...kudos and rep to all.

[Gamerprinter]

Xara Xtreme has a very effective slicing tool within, so creating multiple pieces of a specific size is no real problem.

One descrepancy I've found, however, is that "shadows" are attached alogrythymically different than other objects. When I slice an area that includes a shadow, but not its "casting object", it doesn't slice off. I am forced to redraw a polyline copy filled black and given an equal amount of transparency to look like the shadow. This could be quite disconcerting around many or complex shadowing in a sliced area.

Of course I can always export it as a graphic image, then import it back in to slice it up. But the graphic version is not editable as it would be in Xara (.xar) format.

So the other descrepancy on export size limitations is almost mute, in that I can (in most cases) slice the map to optimal sizes for VTT easily.