[Mapserver-users] Regarding very large raster files.

[Swaminathan, Gayathri]

Hi:

We are planning to get some 1-foot resolution orthos from the
seamless.gov 

But I have the following queries..and want to be sure of raster handling
before purchase.

1) Is MrSID a preferrable format?
	- My guess is no, correct? Although GDAL supports Mr.SID we are
taking about continuous decompression when the rasters are accessed
which is  
	definetely slower than direct access.
2) Is converting to TIFF the way to go?
	-But GDAL's supported formats link mentions that TIFF can have
max.size of only 4GB...

Any pointers on the above questions will be greatly useful....

Thanks
Gayathri