How long can c-squares strings be in practice?
That depends on three factors: (a) the area (or length of line, or number of points) represented; (b) the resolution chosen for the encoding; and (c) whether or not large blocks of squares are included which can be “compressed” by the mechanism indicated above, in the answer to Question 10. Put simply, if a string represents 10 tiles, encoded at 1 degree resolution, with no compression possible, 89 characters will be required (=8 characters per code, plus 1 separator character after each code, except for the last). A string representing 1000 tiles at 0.5 degree resolution, again with no compression, would require 10,999 characters (=11,000 -1), since each code now has 10 characters, plus a separator. While these strings may appear somewhat lengthy, they are comparable in size to a moderate size text document, or (say) a small gif image, and are not too unwieldy to store and manipulate. Compression, too, will often result in substantial savings, for example a filled 10-degree square wit
