Should I save images to the server

[hwttdz]

I'm using php to generate pictures, the pictures are maps with different locations plotted on them in different colors to signify information. Right now what the php does is it goes and looks in a mySQL database to get latitude and longitude and information about the location then it draws the location on the map. Right now it does this for every person who goes and looks at the site. I'm wondering if this puts an undue amount of strain on the server and I should look into a way of generating images and then uploading them as flat image files to the server and serving those image files?

So should I make the images every time?
or should I save the images to the server and serve those to the client?

[Paul_Ferrie]

If the information inside the db is to remain static then i would drop the db and just draw up the images.

But in the other hand if the information in the db is updated in a regular basis then i think it would be best to stick with what your doing at present.

Really depends on what use the db is.

Hope it helps
Paul

[AstroTeg]

You might look into rolling your own caching system into your current setup. In theory, come up with a image naming scheme and when a user requests an image, have your code check to see if its drawn the image before. If it has, it should retrieve it from the image cache (say a subdirectory you have somewhere on your server). The trick is figuring out what the cached file name would be (maybe the coordinates are in the file name?). If the file has been already generated, PHP could read the file back to the user without having to do much heavy lifting. If the file doesn't exist, then this is probably the first time this image has been requested and your script will generate the image, save it, and present it to the user, in theory of course...