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Crystal Reports Tools: Improve Performance While Saving Time and Money |
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Crystal Reports: Speed up reports with large image fieldsWe had a report that retrieved a few records from several tables in a database. One table had a large (500k) image stored in an OLE/Large Binary field. We used this to store the customer logo for the report. Because of the way SQL and table joins retrieve record sets, the image was retrieved for each record, so our 500k field for each of 200 records required 100MB of data to be downloaded to the report viewer. The delay was noticeable. Removing the image field from the report proved that the image was the cause of the delay. We solved the performance problem by using a subreport in the Page header to fetch the image field. Now, there is another tool available for working with images. See cViewIMAGE. If you have performance problems--or even think you might have performance problems--don't fart around trying to guess the cause. Instead, use Report Analyzer to show you exactly where the opportunities are for improving your reports and making best use of your time and your system infrastructure. Here's some information about cViewIMAGE. This is a very handy utility--we all know a picture is worth a thousand words. And that's why cViewIMAGE is one of our most popular products. Why not add that power to your Crystal Reports? The better your reports look, the better you look! One of the great features in Crystal Reports 8 and higher is that you can use a COM data source. This means you can create a recordset from within some application code and then use it as the source of data for your report. And even better is you don't have to write, test, and rewrite your own. We have done all the work for you! Now you can dress up your reports the easy way, with cViewIMAGE. To find out more, click here: http://www.crystalkeen.com/reports/graphics/chlscomdrivercvt.html We have developed cViewIMAGE, a com data source that takes three fields from any ODBC table (an identifier, a description and a filename of the image file). The COM data source creates a fourth field, which is the image that the file name contains. Use this in a subreport to display that filename as an image in your report. The big benefit is that the entire recordset gets loaded into memory, so it is very fast to load and process some images, and it is totally flexible about what images and database fields you use. It just requires an ODBC data source. On the negative side, some initial setup is required to identify the location of the image, but we have made our driver flexible so you can support multiple configurations. We might even create an expanded version to include all the other fields in the table. Let us know if this is of interest.
cViewIMAGE is a COM data driver that can reference an image file in a field and return the embedded image to use in your report. This is a very handy utility--we all know a picture is worth a thousand words--why not add that power to your Crystal Reports? cViewIMAGE: Pricing | Buy Now
This article is copyrighted by Crystalkeen, Mindconnection, and Chelsea Technologies Ltd. It may be freely copied and distributed as long as the original copyright is displayed and no modifications are made to this material. Extracts are permitted. The names Crystal Reports and Seagate Info are trademarks owned by Business Objects. |
