Cheapest way of creating a composite image?

[demione]

I'm trying to create an image in code made up of a number of smaller images.

The usual method I have been using to do this is to instantiate a series of UIImageViews, and then call 'addSubview' to add them all to a main UIView.

However I get the impression this is not the fastest implementation. If the overall UIView has a large height and width, I am experiencing some framerate issues when dragging it around the screen.

I'd like to play around with different implementations if possible. One idea that comes to mind is to see if there's any low-level way of creating an image in memory from smaller images. If I had something like that, I could simple generate an in-memory composite image, and then assign it to one single UIImageView.

If any of you out there have done this, please let me know. Additionally, if you think this approach would not gain me significant performance, I'd also love to hear about it and any other ways to accomplish what I'm trying to do.

Thanks!

[Cobra]

I think there are a number of ways to do this. Maybe have a look at NES.app source, I think they do a lot of work with small images in multi-parts. Maybe not exactly what you want though.

[JLA]

If the image isn't going to be doing a lot of changing, then maybe you should use the CGContext stuff...it seems that Core Graphics on the Mac isn't that different from the iPhone version...there should be some efficient code for this on a Cocoa site somewhere.