"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

> Just 34 of them (so far.) SO, I *could* make 34 complete image_patterns, stick
> them into an array-- which hopefully will accept them and greatly reduce the
> subsequent memory load-- then call *those* in the repeating
> texture{image_pattern{...  later.

If you're going to use the image map to render something, then AFAIK, it needs
to be in memory, so the render engine can refer to the pixel values in order to
calculate the rendered image result.  So I don't think there's any way around
decreasing the memory except for using smaller images.   Even using something
like jpg instead of png might not work, since the jpg has to be decompressed.
And if that's done on the fly, and not all at once, then you're taking a hit on
render time.


> code-efficient way, simply because of that thorny image_pattern syntax. Thus the
> current macro use-- which isn't ideal, memory-wise.)

The macro is stored in memory - the referenced contents of the macro are not -
until the macro is invoked.
Since it's just ASCII text, even a smalll book wouldn't take up a prohibitive
amount of memory in comparison to the image data.

> Not an insurmountable task, and might be worth the effort... which is solely to
> reduce the scene's memory load and parse time. My Windows 7 machine has only 7GB
> of ram(!), so disc-swapping currently begins to happen if I try to make, say,
> 10000 buildings.

Buy more RAM - I ignored the people who said I couldn't put 16 GB of RAM in my
laptop after researching the issue.    Been running fine for years.

You can also do that thing where you use a (cheap) USB drive to boost your
memory - no idea how fast/slow that is, but it will save on the HDD thrashing.

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