How do I handle a huge tif in WPF?

Question

I have an 8bit tiff thats 14406x9606 pixels that when loaded via BitmapImage throws a System.OutOfMemoryException. As a full depth bitmap its about 400 megs in size. Is there a way to partition the image into more manageable chunks? I've tried using DecodePixelHeight to load it at a lower resolution and this works, but then I need to reload whenever the zoom level changes. Are there any established tools for dealing with really large images in WPF at differing zoom levels?

Answer 1

There is nothing built-in that handles this directly. DecodePixelHeight, as you mentioned, is probably the best option in the framework itself.

However, you could use something like the C# wrappers for GDAL. GDAL handles very large TIFF files, including ones with pyramids, and allow you to (very quickly) open up the TIFF at varied resolutions without loading the entire file into memory. This will still require a refresh/reload on resolution change, but the speed of their TIFF loading is quite a bit faster than the framework's imaging classes, as it's designed to handle extremely large imagery.