Large pixmap strategy needed

[Dave Swegen <dave recursive prestel co uk>]

The game I'm writing has a map that is 1500x500 in size, and I was hoping
someone might be able to suggest how to tackle a few issues that I have
regarding it:

1) What format to save the map as: xpms are easy to load and display, but
it would turn out quite large (just under 700k), so #including it is out
of the question (unless I store it RLE encoded somehow).

2) Do I convert the whole map to a pixmap at once, or, as one approach I
had which was to split it up into vertical strips and only display the
strips I need, which would also solve another problem:

3) The map needs to wrap around horizontally. How (apart from the method
mentioned above) could this be handled?

4) How are pixmaps stored? I will need to flood-fill regions, and
depending on what approach I take I might have to work on the pixmap
directly (or is this inadvisable?)

Any thoughts on the matter would be much appreciated.

Cheers
	Dave

-- 
Dave Swegen <dave@recursive.prestel.co.uk>
.plan: To find a job working with Linux