Reusing the same image multiple times but store only once in the PDF

[msageryd]

Is it possible to reuse resources multiple times inside of a PDF in order to not bloat the PDF with multiple copies of the same image? Also, I need this to work within SVG tags because I'm overlaying the images with svg graphics.

My use case:

1. Show one large original image on one page
2. Show multiple different crops (viewbox) of the same image inside of svg elements on other pages

Here are some idéas that I don't think will fly:

1. define the image as an svg resource with <defs> and use it multiple times with <use>. I need many separate svg tags and defs is only scoped to the current svg parent, so this won't work.

2. load the image as a background image defined in a css class. The background image concept does not seem to work for images inside of svgs.

Any other suggestions?

My fallback solution will be to have a server generate all the croped jpg images to minimize the size. Viewbox only hides parts of the image, but the complete image is still stored in the pdf multiple times.