TatukGIS now supports version 2 of the TatukGIS PixelStore format in TatukGIS products. PixelStore v. 2 adds the following:
- Support for storing PixelStore images in any SQL server database product. (The original PixelStore version supported only Borland® Interbase™ for SQL server layers, as well as Microsoft® JET database on a local PC.)
- Support for 8 and 24 bit JPEG and 1, 8, and 24 bit PNG inside the PixelStore system, for better compression with some image types, such as gray scale aerial images and scanned maps with limited colors. (The original PixelStore supported only 24 bit JPEG and 24 bit PNG.)
- Elimination of the white boarders which were an undesirable characteristic of the original PixelStore format.
- Improved stability and resolution of a number of limitations in the original PixelStore system.
The TatukGIS PixelStore format is a TatukGIS specific image file storage system designed to efficiently (yet affordably) handle huge raster image layers. A Pixelstore image is one "virtual" tiled image, with the tiles organized into a SQL database hierarchy. Images stored to the PixelStore system are divided into 512x512 pixel tiles, with each tile compressed independently. Any single map view is derived from the level of the hierarchy which most closely matches the scale of the map zoom level. Only a few tiles must be fetched from the database to present each map view, resulting in very fast rendering. The file type and compression level used within a PixelStore file can be specified with the following options: i) 1, 8 or 24 bit PNG (lostless) compression for scanned maps and images with limited colors, or ii) 8 or 24 bit JPEG compression for gray scale and unlimited color aerial photos.
The PixelStore system can efficiently handle image files of practically any size, limited only by the limitations of the database product and the size of the computer hard disk. The PixelStore system works by default with the Microsoft Jet database engine, which is standard in the Windows O/S, but a PixelStore image can be configured for storage in any SQL database product with ADO/ODBC or DBX interfaces.
The PixelStore system is supported in the TatukGIS Developer Kernel (DK) and Internet Server (IS) products, in any final user application created from the DK, the TatukGIS Editor, TatukGIS Aerial Imagery Corrector, and TatukGIS free GIS Viewer. Even the free GIS Viewer can be used to create PixelStore image files. No special licensing is required by TatukGIS to create and use PixelStore format images.
Click here to review a large PixelStore format aerial image being web published with the TatukGIS Internet Server LITE product.
Click here to review the description of a commercial web server solution performed by a TatukGIS customer featuring a huge PixelStore v. 2 image layer