[mapserver-users] Mapserver 3.7 and GD2 support

[Puneet Kishor]

On Saturday, September 21, 2002, at 08:37  AM, woodbri at swoodbridge.com 
wrote:

> On 21 Sep 2002 at 14:27, Stepan Kafka wrote:
>
>> I think, it is caused by 256 color limit in MS 3.6x version. Your
>> colortable is full so MS chages the colors. Tehe solution is using new
>> RGB supporting version (3.7).
>
> So this raises a question for me. Adding GD 2 gives mapserver the
> ability to deal with more colors internally, but web browsers still
> are limited on the number of colors they can use!

yeah but... most everyone's monitors run at 16-bit+ (heck, even Palm 
users complain when they discover their 16-bit doohickey was only 
12-bit after all... as if they could tell the difference).

>
> So what happens?
>
> I am assuming the mapserver can build a high color memory image of
> the map in question, but then it still has to reduce it to around 256
> colors on output. Do we get better output images because it can defer
> the color reduction until it knows all the colors it needs to deal
> with? or does it output higher color images and the browsers can
> actually handle more colors than I think? or something else?
>

mapserver does its job, hands the image to the server, and goes back to 
wait for another request. The server sends it to the client and goes 
back to wait for another request. What the client (user) does with the 
image is anyone's guess. But, going by what I wrote above, my guess it 
that the client looks at the image in at least 16-bit color. Otherwise, 
the client should be brought into the modern age rather rapidly.

pk/