Use of multiple sid files

[Lee Keel]

I have figured out that I cannot use tile4ms directly with the sid files, but can I use it to create an index of an index file?  In other words: can I create an index shape file for a group of the sid files then use tile4ms to create a "master" index shape file with group of the sid shape files in it?
 
Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
Lee Keel

________________________________

From: UMN MapServer Users List on behalf of Lee Keel
Sent: Tue 1/22/2008 5:37 PM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Use of multiple sid files



Just wanted to ask the list for some opinions on what the best approach would be:

Problem:
I am serving aerial images for areas around larger cities.  I am using Tiger shapes for the area around where I don't have images.  These images are several hundred gig worth of sid files that I am serving through tilecache.  So, once I seed the cache, these files won't be accessed again until I get new sid files.

What I am currently doing:
I am currently using a tool that creates a bunch of batch files (http://sourceforge.net/projects/batchsplitter/).  These batch files use gdal_translate and gdaladdo to create individual tiled tif files, then using gdaltindex and shptree I create an index shape file for the tifs.  As you can imagine, this is very costly in space and has grown to have some complications.  Namely that there are holes in my overall shape file but there should be images available.

Just curious:
I was wondering if I could do something with tile4ms, but I don't know anything about it and wasn't sure it would be the solution I was looking for.

I am open to any suggestions regarding the best way to serve these images.

Thanks,
Lee Keel