[Scribus] Memory Consumption on Image Frames

[Nicolás Carranza]

Gregory Pittman wrote:
> Nicol?s Carranza wrote:
>   
>> Gregory Pittman wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> Nicol?s Carranza wrote:
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>>>> I'm using scribus to do annotations on PDF documents. I import all the 
>>>> PDF pages in image frames. I see that scribus caches in memory all the 
>>>> images contained in an entire document and makes "imposible" to edit 
>>>> documents with lots of images (40 (1800x2775) images take about 800MB of 
>>>> memory for a 40 pages PDF). Anybody knows if there are plans to do a 
>>>> more intelligent caching of images or image frame behavior (only caching 
>>>> the images that are shown or its neighboring pages) so that we can use 
>>>> scribus in documents with hundreds of high-res images?
>>>>   
>>>>     
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>> Try going to File > Document Setup > Tools, and clicking on the icon for 
>>> image frame specs. Reduce the On Screen Preview image quality to low 
>>> resolution.
>>> By doing this with a 60-image file in Scribus (these were jpegs), I was 
>>> able to reduce memory usage by about 200MB.
>>> I don't know what version you are using, mine was 1.3.3.8cvs.
>>>
>>> Greg
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Scribus mailing list
>>> Scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de
>>> http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/mailman/listinfo/scribus
>>>
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>> Hi Greg. Thanks for the tip, using "low resolution preview" the memory 
>> consumption was reduced from ~750MB to ~250MB on my 40 pages scribus 
>> doc. (Scribus 1.3.3.6)..
>> But... I really think that scribus needs better image handling (caching) 
>> so that I can see the images in its full resolution  because I need to 
>> do annotations about those images as an end product. Anyway 250MB for 40 
>> pages are a lot because the complete PDF is ~400 pages and that would 
>> make ~2500MB of cached low-res images; I split it in 10 pieces to make 
>> it workable. This sounds like a request enhancement, maybe this list is 
>> not for request enhancements but there it was.
>>   
>>     
> I agree. After I sent the previous note, I tried making a PDF from a 
> file with about 80 images and Scribus crashed, I think from the memory 
> issue. I'm using a machine with about 500mg RAM and 1GB of swap - 
> apparently not enough. In contrast, Adobe Reader uses a whole lot less 
> memory to load a file with 60 images.
>
> Greg
> _______________________________________________
> Scribus mailing list
> Scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de
> http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/mailman/listinfo/scribus
>
>   
I saw that it depends on how you tried to import/open the PDF. Using 
"File->Import->Import EPS/PS..." scribus imports the PDF not only as 
images but also as poligons and many other objects, this also uses a lot 
of memory but I think that this is another problem.

I don't need all those objects ("PDF components") imported, I only need 
to annotate over the images; so, I used a script to export each PDF page 
as a good quality image and then import them to a scribus doc (using 
something like this script 
http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Automatic_import_of_images_from_a_directory_using_a_script; 
I can send you my script if you want). This makes things a lot easier 
for scribus (it does not construct all of those objects), but the memory 
problem because of cached images arises.