BMP tile resolution - 96 or 72dpi???

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davem
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 5:50 pm

BMP tile resolution - 96 or 72dpi???

Post by davem » Mon Aug 31, 2009 5:54 pm

Hi all,

I've just finished most of the work on bringing RAF Fairford up to date and have only one question which needs answering.

SBX gets the photo tiles in bmp format at 96dpi. Should this resolution be used for the resulting bgls, or can I downsize to 72dpi and save myself a few MBs worth of space? At the moment my bgl from the 96dpi tile is about 7.5MB whereas the bgl from the 72dpi tile is 2.5MB.

I don't think I can see much (if any) difference so if anyone knows a definitive answer I'd be very grateful for it!

Many thanks in advance, and thanks also to Luis for a stunning piece of programming!

ATB,

DAVE.

meshman
Posts: 219
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2006 11:54 pm

Re: BMP tile resolution - 96 or 72dpi???

Post by meshman » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:03 pm

Use what looks best to you, it's your work and designers are generally their own harshest critics! :lol:

Personally, I look for the best resolution possible, especially around an airport. What may help, if you're concerned about file size, is the amount of compression being applied to the images when the BGL file is made. By default (IIRC?) SBuilderX does not pass any compression as part of the compiling parameters. This can easily be checked by opening the SBuilder.ini file in the main SBX folder. Down at the bottom you'll see this; CompressionQuality=100. If it's at 100, changing it to 97, 96 or a little lower will dramtically reduce the file size for the photo work. I wouldn't go too low, 95% is pretty much the cutoff for me. But tinker with that setting and you should be able to retain as high detail source as possible, without worrying about file bloat.
Lance

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