optimizing tilemapping? any ideas or links or whatever

[realMakc]

for tile map 100x100 and more, to be drawn by beginBitmapFill()/drawRect(), I made an optimization routine that combines tiles with same fill into larger rectangles to have less drawRect() calls. however, my algorithm is suboptimal, as you can see here; I would like any pointers for existing solutions and/or ideas, anyone. even appropriate search terms could help. thanks

[Freshmaker]

This smells like an NP-complete problem to me. No real help to offer other than to suggest looking at packing problems and their solutions to see if those offer or lead to any insight. You may have already tried this, though.

I'd be interested in whatever solutions you come up with, though.

[realMakc]

well... after short discussion elsewhere I found that, even if I manage to solve this with some kind of search algorithm, there are still show-stopper cases like checkerboard or noise patterns. so I went in totally different direction with pixel bender