Question

Is it possible to remove or delete the bottom layer of the deep zoom image pyramid? It seems that I can shrink the deep zoom image by half by removing the bottom layer.

Answer

Yes. This is possible. And, you are correct, removing the bottom layer of the pyramid reduces the total size of the deep zoom image by about half.

To do this, you must remove the bottom layer of the image pyramid and reduce the width and height settings.

Note
Make a backup of your deepzoom folder before you make the following changes.

Deleting the Bottom Pyramid Layer

1. Locate the DeepZoom folder. This is typically named DeepZoom-(filtername). If no filter was applied, the folder is named DeepZoom-unfiltered.
2. In the DeepZoom folder, the DZOutput_files folder contains a folder for each layer of the pyramid. Delete the folder with the largest number (this is the bottom of the pyramid).

Changing the Width and Height

The width and height are stored in DZOutput.xml which is located in the DeepZoom folder.

1. Open the DZOutput.xml file in a text editor.
2. Change the width and height to ½ the values. Do not change any other values in the XML file.
3. Save the file.

Following is an example of the contents of the DZOutput.xml file.

DZOutput.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Image xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/deepzoom/2009"
       ServerFormat="Default"
       Format="jpg"
       Overlap="0"
       TileSize="256">
  <Size Width="19796"
        Height="14278"/>
</Image>

Viewing the Reduced-Size Deep Zoom Image

As a final test, open the Deep Zoom image to confirm that the file size has indeed changed and that you can view the image and various zoom levels.