Article:
The aim of Seadragon is nothing less than to change the way we use screens, from wall-sized displays all the way down to cell phones, so that graphics and photos are smoothly browsed, regardless of the amount of data or the bandwidth of the network.
Consider the following four "promises" of Seadragon:
- Speed of navigation is independent of the size or number of objects.
- Performance depends only on the ratio of bandwidth to pixels on the screen.
- Transitions are smooth as butter.
- Scaling is near perfect and rapid for screens of any resolution.
How can you use Seadragon?
You can get Seadragon Deep Zoom functionality by using Photosynth, which not only allows you to get super-close-ups of your pictures but also stitches them together into a 3-D space. You can use Seadragon Ajax and embed a simple viewer into your own web sites or blog posts. Or, you can also download the Deep Zoom Composer to embed a viewer into your own web site or blog post.
For Developers
Developers can leverage Deep Zoom functionality by using the Silverlight platform. They can also take advantage of the Seadragon Ajax Library to customize viewers and controls.
Thoughts:
This technology is about providing faster Internet browsing regardless of the size, resolution or number of images being displayed. This article doesn't explain how the technology works. Is this technology available to the general public? How expensive is it? This technology is relevant to architectural offices as it has the potential to decrease time spent online researching site contextuality.