[Mapserver-users] .tiff resolution

[Charlton Purvis]

Ah, well said, Ed.  Sounds like you speak from experience, and that's
exactly the type of rationalization that I was looking for.  Sure, I'll
give it a shot, and then take it from there.

I must admit, though, that the <CR> after "premature" in your post had
me filling in the next word w/ something other than "optimization".  It
must be Friday.

No matter.  I hope I'll be able to return a favor or two sometime down
the road.

Thanks,

Charlton

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed McNierney [mailto:ed at topozone.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2003 3:16 PM
To: Charlton Purvis; Hankley, Chip; MapServer List (E-mail)
Subject: RE: [Mapserver-users] .tiff resolution

Charlton -

You're suffering from what my friend Bob Frankston calls "premature
optimization".

Unless you're planning on a high-volume commercial setup, stop worrying
about performance.  And even if you are planning high volume, get it
working well first as a prototype, THEN worry about performance.

Just toss all the shapefiles on to your map and see what happens.  There
are a variety of performance tweaks you can make to optimize your vector
data.

The problem with a pre-generated raster is that it will really only look
its best at the exact same viewing scale used to render it.  Raster
images that are really rendered line art (like this is) don't rescale
well.  Raster images that are continuous-tone, like photographs, can
rescale a bit better.

Drawing all those vector graphics isn't that CPU-intensive at all,
really, and CPUs are pretty darn fast these days (even the slow ones
<g>).

	- Ed