Microsoft is moving not only its cross-browser, cross-platform and cross-device alternative to Adobe Flash to the next stage in evolution, but also the collection of solutions built around the plug-in. In this context, the delivery of the Silverlight 2 was accompanied by a range of offerings designed mainly for developers to built content delivering what Microsoft referred to as interactive and rich Internet experiences. In conjunction with the RTW (release to web) of Silverlight 2 Build 2.0.31005.0, the Redmond company is already offering Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) but also a new release of Deep Zoom Composer and Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate 1.

“We are pleased to present a technology preview of Deep Zoom Composer, a tool to allow the preparation of images for use with the Deep Zoom feature currently being previewed in Silverlight 2. The new Deep Zoom technology in Silverlight allows users to see images on the Web like they never have before. The smooth in-place zooming and panning that Deep Zoom allows is a true advancement and raises the bar on what image viewing should be. High resolution images need to be prepared for use with Deep Zoom and this tool allows the user to create Deep Zoom composition files that control the zooming experience and then export all the necessary files for deployment with Silverlight 2,” Microsoft revealed.

Silverlight is just a couple of years old, with version 2 dropping approximately one year after 1.0 was released to web. But with Microsoft's infrastructure behind it, the plug-in has grown to a consistent market share, not only via Microsoft's web properties pushing it to visitors, but also through various projects with web developers worldwide. S. Somasegar, Senior Vice President, Developer Division, revealed that the 2008 Beijing Olympics website powered by Silverlight accounted for in excess of 50 million unique visitors in just 17 days.

Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (RC1) is “an add-on for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 to provide tooling for Microsoft Silverlight 2. It can be installed on top of either Visual Studio 2008 SP1 or Visual Web Developer 2008 Express with SP1, and it provides a Silverlight project system for developing Silverlight applications using C# or Visual Basic,” Microsoft revealed.

Deep Zoom Composer is available for download here.
Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (RC1) can be downloaded via this link.