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Maximum Symbols Catalogue Limit???

Terraformer_CreatorTerraformer_Creator
in Mapping with ProFantasy's Software
What is the MAXIMUM number of individual symbols that a catalogue can hold?...

What is a "recommended" limit?

Can a symbol catalogue be made that can either be used WITH cosmographer - OR without it?

Inquiring minds wanna know...Also...has anybody seen my wallet laying around here somewhere? Lol.
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Comments

  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    A lot. I don't know exact limits, but for comparison, the CC3 All overland catalog contains 835 symbols.
    Note that with catalogs this large, use of collections is a must to aid people in finding their symbols.


    As long as you don't put cosmographer-spesific functionality in your symbol catalog (height symbols, basically), the symbol catalog will work just fine both with and without Cosmographer. (Height symbols may actually also work without Cosmographer, but I haven't tested it).
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  • Terraformer_CreatorTerraformer_Creator
    Posted By: MonsenA lot. I don't know exact limits, but for comparison, the CC3 All overland catalog contains 835 symbols.
    Note that with catalogs this large, use of collections is a must to aid people in finding their symbols.


    As long as you don't put cosmographer-spesific functionality in your symbol catalog (height symbols, basically), the symbol catalog will work just fine both with and without Cosmographer. (Height symbols may actually also work without Cosmographer, but I haven't tested it).
    Roger wilko Remy - but I need for you to clarify "Collections" (work with me brother - I'm losing - like - four billion brain cells a day - age is not agreeing with me, lol)...

    The reason that I wanted to know is because I was planning on my terrestrial planets icons alone to be somewhere around a total of about 500.
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  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
    I have four sets of trees in one of my new personal catalogues. The sets are each 100 trees, and each of those 400 trees came from an original that was 2000x2000 pixels. But I'm not having any trouble with any of them as yet :)
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  • Terraformer_CreatorTerraformer_Creator
    Posted By: LoopysueI have four sets of trees in one of my new personal catalogues. The sets are each 100 trees, and each of those 400 trees came from an original that was 2000x2000 pixels. But I'm not having any trouble with any of them as yet :)
    My originals are a solid 600 x 600.
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  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    As far as I can tell, there isn't a fixed upper limit to the size of catalogs because a symbol catalog is just a drawing full of SYMDEF entities and supporting metadata. There are practical limits both from the standpoint of being usable (humans have limited capacity) and from memory constraints (it's not useful to load a symbol catalog that eats so much memory that there isn't any left for making drawings).

    I don't think that there is any specific DLL for cosmographer except for the Traveller sector importer, but I've been wrong before... It's the templates and artwork that are most of the value.

    One suggestion for a large collection of planet-type icons might be to provide catalogs with very broad groupings (Earth-like for green and blue, Ice Worlds for mostly frozen, Mars-like for dry reddish ones, and so on) to assist users with finding things that they like in addition to one master catalog that's useful for picking random worlds. The disk usage for a catalog of PNG symbols is mostly in the PNGs themselves: having the same symbol in two different catalogs adds negligible disk usage.
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  • Terraformer_CreatorTerraformer_Creator
    Posted By: jslaytonAs far as I can tell, there isn't a fixed upper limit to the size of catalogs because a symbol catalog is just a drawing full of SYMDEF entities and supporting metadata. There are practical limits both from the standpoint of being usable (humans have limited capacity) and from memory constraints (it's not useful to load a symbol catalog that eats so much memory that there isn't any left for making drawings).

    I don't think that there is any specific DLL for cosmographer except for the Traveller sector importer, but I've been wrong before... It's the templates and artwork that are most of the value.

    One suggestion for a large collection of planet-type icons might be to provide catalogs with very broad groupings (Earth-like for green and blue, Ice Worlds for mostly frozen, Mars-like for dry reddish ones, and so on) to assist users with finding things that they like in addition to one master catalog that's useful for picking random worlds. The disk usage for a catalog of PNG symbols is mostly in the PNGs themselves: having the same symbol in two different catalogs adds negligible disk usage.
    Ok - so, then by "collections" - we're basically talking about category division? Separate catalogues and folder associations?
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  • Terraformer_CreatorTerraformer_Creator
    Ok - Ok- I get the point...Stop being lazy and go read the darn manual already - Lol...
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  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
    Collections allows symbols in one catalog to be grouped and collapsed. You'll see this by the +-sign in the top left corner of many symbols which you can click to expand that collection. But all symbols are still in one catalog.

    Symbols are grouped in collection based on their name, normally separated by a number or single letter at the end of the name that is different. Which is why file names are really important (Symbol names doesn't need to match the file name, but it complicates things quite a bit if they don't)
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