> Maybe you should give it try:
>
> select
> substring(myblobfield from 1 for 10000) as myvarcharfield
> from
> mytable

This sounds interesting. But even for that, I need a change in the GIS
library SQL statements.

I made some more tests:
- using embedded Firebird: really fast
- using local server: already slower much, probably because of
different protocol
- using remote server in LAN: really slow

So maybe the above could be built in the firebird client. Because
small blob fields are saved in the same block as the record, they
could be sent together with the record to avoid one more request to
the server.

cu Christian