Comparing use of GDAL to build raster pyramids or overviews versus ArcMap?

Question

I have a large set of imagery that I created a mosaic from in ArcMap 10.1. I want to use GDAL to create the overviews because arcmap has issues building the pyramids and never seems to complete. I have experimented with using the GDAL command line utilities specifically:

gdaladdo image.png 2 4

The image alone is about 4gb. When creating the overviews using the above command, it generated and overview file over 60 gb in size.

What levels should I include in the command to mimic what ArcMap would create by default?

Answer 1

I have worked with external and internal to the large extent . External pyramids are little bit slow then internal one's because the data has to be ready from the external file . GDAL has to read .ovr file.

Pros of external overview:-

1. Less space to store.
2. Handy and can be deelte anytime if not required.

Cons of external overview:-

1. Less Speed 2. takes 15% more size w.r.t. actual data size on hard disk.

Cons of internal overview:-

1. takes 35% more size w.r.t. actual data size on hard disk.
2. once created you can remove internal pyramids but space used for internal pyramids will not come back. Ex:- if 300 MB original dataset , we build internal it becomes 415MB , when we remove internal pyramids, size of raster will remains 415MB.
3. can only be build if data set size don't exceed 4 GB

Pros of internal overview:-

1. Faster Speed.