[weblacky]

I thought I'd ask this in the beginner's section because it feels like a beginners question. I've heard rumors that a combination of software and the Irix operating system allowed people to open enormous image files that PCs of the day not only couldn't open but still have trouble opening today. I'm talking about files that might be a gigabyte or more in size.

Making the assumption you're dealing with an Sgi Octane level system or higher and you have more than one gigabyte of active memory installed in the system. What applications would you all recommend for somebody attempting to view, zoom, potentially crop and even resample from very large image files?

I haven't even tried whatever the default viewer is in the operating system. I thought I'd come here to ask what everyone's opinions were. I'm not against starting Photoshop and that kind of software but I'm more talking about viewing than professional editing. However if one of the editing software packages is incredibly good at working with very large files I'd still like to know that.

Also a bonus question. I remember in the 90s when Photo Mosaic creation software became available (making a large picture of say a person out of many many smaller individual pictures) and when panoramic stitching software became available. Any of that available to a package on Irix that works pretty well?  These would've been developed during SGI's hay day when it was king of the roost. So I assume these techniques were pioneered on graphics intensive platforms like SGI.

Thanks!