14 DAY TRIAL // Got digital images with enough megapixels to feel like the real estate space of the screen is insufficient? Well, via Seadragon.com, a project from Microsoft Live Labs, now you have a way to do justice by your pictures, by transforming them into zoomable content. In this regard, all you need to do is leverage the new Seadragon service that went live on July 30th, 2009. The service is designed to enable end users to transform virtually any web image into what Bill Crow, the Seadragon group manager at Microsoft Live Labs, referred to as a Seadragon-powered zoomable photo experience. Following the Seadragon transformation, the resulting content can be embedded into every webpage.
“It’s really easy to create your own zoomable photos. It’s free and it doesn’t require you to sign up for anything. All you need is the URL to your web image. Paste the URL at seadragon.com and click one button. Depending on the resolution of your image, it may take a moment or two to create the zoomable version. You can then copy the link to the zoomable viewer page for your image on seadragon.com and share it on Twitter, your Facebook status, or anywhere else you choose. Or, you can do what I did for the photo above and copy a one-line script that lets you embed the zoomable viewer on your own web page, blog posting, eBay advertisement, or other web destination,” Crow noted.
Crow is by no means exaggerating when he says any URL to an image. Got a website? A blog? A Flickr account? They will all do. But the Seadragon content will deliver a far superior user experience to any static image. First off there is a matter of the sheer performance delivered. Seadragon content loads almost instantaneously, and can be navigated seamlessly with no glitches or speed deterioration, irrespective of the size of the original image. The second advantage is that users can easily jump from one detail to another in an image as far as the zoom action will permit it. And the best thing about it is that even though Deep Zoom is traditionally a feature associated with Silverlight, even users who don't have Silverlight installed can still access the content.
“The Seadragon viewer isn’t your average zoomable viewer; it includes some cool new technology that delivers stunning performance but still makes it accessible to virtually everyone,” Crow stated. “ If you have Silverlight installed (and if you don’t, you should), the viewer uses Silverlight Deep Zoom to deliver a buttery-smooth full screen zooming experience. But even if you don’t have Silverlight, the viewer will still operate using our Seadragon Ajax technology. The appearance and features are identical, but the performance will be a bit slower than with Silverlight Deep Zoom. This new dual-mode viewer makes sharing high quality, full resolution images easier than ever, without turning away any of your potential audience.”