micamedia
asked on
PHP Image Viewer with Pan and Zoom
I know i could code this my self with a bit of work, but before I do I wanted to know if anyone knows of any prebuilt image view that does that following:
1. Allows the user to zoom in on the image
2. allows the user to pan the image.
If i did code this my self using the GD graphic library and php, how feasable would it be? Would it be very slow as php would have to re-write the image each time a pan/zoom was executed?
IF anyone can give me suggestions on how I might approach coding it myself, for optimum speed, that would be very helpful as well.
Thank you in advance.
Dan
1. Allows the user to zoom in on the image
2. allows the user to pan the image.
If i did code this my self using the GD graphic library and php, how feasable would it be? Would it be very slow as php would have to re-write the image each time a pan/zoom was executed?
IF anyone can give me suggestions on how I might approach coding it myself, for optimum speed, that would be very helpful as well.
Thank you in advance.
Dan
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Actually, a nicer way to do this would be to create multiple thumbnails of the image on the fly, each representing a different zoom level. You can use the imagemagick libs (also mentioned in your other post) to create very nice-looking thumbnails. Also the user doesn't need to load the full-res image to see it.
ASKER
hmm.. didn't think of the javascript / iframe option.. that might be a good idea.. I'd have to test it out to see how well that might work.
Maybe i could combine that with different thumbnail zoom levels like you said. Then let the browser zoom each of these, and have some script that switches to the next level of zoom image when the users gets to a certain zoom point.
How many browsers support iframes? Would i run into browser compatibility issues?
Maybe i could combine that with different thumbnail zoom levels like you said. Then let the browser zoom each of these, and have some script that switches to the next level of zoom image when the users gets to a certain zoom point.
How many browsers support iframes? Would i run into browser compatibility issues?
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
yes.. i would like to do that.. use flash.. but how? And yes it would need to be dynamic, i should be able to pass it some information about what image to use.
Can yhou help?
Can yhou help?
I'm not a Flash programmer at all, so I wouldn't be the right person to ask.
But if I was wanting to do what you are asking, I would...
Download the 30 day trial of the latest Flash version
Have a play with it, read the documentation and go through the tutorials
Post in the Flash area "How do I dynamically change images within a flash file?" if you get stuck
I'm pretty sure the new versions of flash are a lot more programmer oriented, meaning you can now use Flash to access information via files, GET, POST, and maybe even databases.
I'm sorry I can't be of more use, but hopefully this is a starting point if you want to look at this option further.
But if I was wanting to do what you are asking, I would...
Download the 30 day trial of the latest Flash version
Have a play with it, read the documentation and go through the tutorials
Post in the Flash area "How do I dynamically change images within a flash file?" if you get stuck
I'm pretty sure the new versions of flash are a lot more programmer oriented, meaning you can now use Flash to access information via files, GET, POST, and maybe even databases.
I'm sorry I can't be of more use, but hopefully this is a starting point if you want to look at this option further.
iframe support is pretty prevalent (http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/reference/browser_chart/) so you shouldn't really run into problems there, except maybe netscape 4.x, may it rot in hell for all eternity.
Incremental loading of the thumbnails would be a nice way to reduce bandwidth, particularly if you're dealing with very large images. If you want to get carried away, you could even create break the larger versions of the image into smaller versions. So when zoomed all the way out, you're viewing one small thumbnail of the large image. When you zoom in past a certain point... well, I just realized that this would be a _ton_ of work. Probably not worth the bandwidth savings.
At any rate, given a starting image, you could make thumbnails for it in a loop, each thumb is say 30% smaller than the one before it, until you get to a thumb that is a little bigger than the smallest version you want to display. Label these well, and then you should be able to do the incremental resizing thing.
Incremental loading of the thumbnails would be a nice way to reduce bandwidth, particularly if you're dealing with very large images. If you want to get carried away, you could even create break the larger versions of the image into smaller versions. So when zoomed all the way out, you're viewing one small thumbnail of the large image. When you zoom in past a certain point... well, I just realized that this would be a _ton_ of work. Probably not worth the bandwidth savings.
At any rate, given a starting image, you could make thumbnails for it in a loop, each thumb is say 30% smaller than the one before it, until you get to a thumb that is a little bigger than the smallest version you want to display. Label these well, and then you should be able to do the incremental resizing thing.