"Bitmap too large to be uploaded into a texture"

Question

This isn't a direct answer to the question (loading images >2048), but a possible solution for anyone experiencing the error.

In my case, the image was smaller than 2048 in both dimensions (1280x727 to be exact) and the issue was specifically experienced on a Galaxy Nexus. The image was in the drawable folder and none of the qualified folders. Android assumes drawables without a density qualifier are mdpi and scales them up or down for other densities, in this case scaled up 2x for xhdpi. Moving the culprit image to drawable-nodpi to prevent scaling solved the problem.

I have scaled down the image in this way:

ImageView iv  = (ImageView)waypointListView.findViewById(R.id.waypoint_picker_photo);
Bitmap d = new BitmapDrawable(ctx.getResources() , w.photo.getAbsolutePath()).getBitmap();
int nh = (int) ( d.getHeight() * (512.0 / d.getWidth()) );
Bitmap scaled = Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(d, 512, nh, true);
iv.setImageBitmap(scaled);

All rendering is based on OpenGL, so no you can't go over this limit (GL_MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE depends on the device, but the minimum is 2048x2048, so any image lower than 2048x2048 will fit).

With such big images, if you want to zoom in out, and in a mobile, you should setup a system similar to what you see in google maps for example. With the image split in several pieces, and several definitions.

Or you could scale down the image before displaying it (see user1352407's answer on this question).

And also, be careful to which folder you put the image into, Android can automatically scale up images. Have a look at Pilot_51's answer below on this question.

Instead of spending hours upon hours trying to write/debug all this downsampling code manually, why not use Picasso? It was made for dealing with bitmaps of all types and/or sizes.

I have used this single line of code to remove my "bitmap too large...." problem:

Picasso.load(resourceId).fit().centerCrop().into(imageView);

Addition of the following 2 attributes in (AndroidManifest.xml) worked for me:

android:largeHeap="true"
android:hardwareAccelerated="false"

Changing the image file to drawable-nodpi folder from drawable folder worked for me.