What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Mirrored Blogs — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:38:06 GMT

Yesterday, we released another update to Deep Zoom Composer, and you can download it for free from the

What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Sparkle bloggers — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 09:08:47 GMT

Yesterday, we released another update to Deep Zoom Composer, and you can download it for free from the

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

James — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:56:59 GMT

These changes are good -- the PNG support especially! Nice work!

For my company, one of the key aspects of Silverlight 2 that excites us is the ability to create new, rich UIs in such a way that they can integrate with existing J2EE-based back-end services and our existing Solaris-based server infrastructure. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an easy way to build deep zoom collections in this setup.

One thing I'd really like to see is a set of APIs to programmatically create deep zoom collections (both .NET and Java would be nice). I know there is the SparseImageTool.exe file, but I have a need in which I need to dynamically generate deep zoom collections at runtime. The kicker is that it must be done from a J2EE-based application running on Solaris...so obviously any solution that relies on Windows-based executable, or having the .NET CLR won't work. As an alternative, are there any functional specifications available so that I can build a Java component to get to the same end result?

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Mike — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:06:20 GMT

I have the same request as James. Can you provide any info on that?

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Eric — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:45:11 GMT

This version of Deep Zoom Composer seems to export even worse than the first version. Images are not even close to being displayed in the position as composed in Composer. Arranging into a grid makes the pictures display on top of each other. I hope a next version will be released soon!

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 and related downloads

Katrien's MSDN Blog — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:54:54 GMT

During the opening keynote at TechEd Orlando last Tuesday, Soma announced the availability of Silverlight

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:38:54 GMT

Mike/James - I don't know what the plans are for that, but if I hear anything, I'll be sure to blog about it :)

Eric - can you create a small repro and e-mail me your project files to kirupac[at]microsoft.com?

Thanks,

Kirupa :)

Sample Updates for Beta 2

Joe Stegman's WebBlog — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:37:37 GMT

I updated a few of my most recent samples to work with the Beta 2 version of Silverlight 2. You can find

Mi az újdonság a DeepZoom Composerben?

VBandi — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:05:36 GMT

XML formátum - ez igazából a nem a Composerben új, hanem a DeepZoom-ban - a lényeg

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

SoulSolutions — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:34:20 GMT

Thanks to the new XML format for Deep Zoom I got a Virtual Earth example running. Pretty cool stuff:

http://www.soulsolutions.com.au/Default.aspx?tabid=73&EntryID=468

Little video clip and source code. Wish there was a way to get the multiscaleimage to talk directly to the VE tiles. Is there any more information about this?

John.

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

jaybo — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:26:17 GMT

Composer feature requests:

1. Provide an option when bringing images onto the composer canvas to not autoscale the images to some random default value. I need to have the relative scale of multiple images preserved, but it looks like Composer finds the largest image dimension for all images, and then scales all subsequent images to this value when importing onto the canvas. While this might be the generally desired behavior, there's another large class of usage in which autoscaling is the wrong choice.

2. Let me assign a transparency value to an image while working with it in composer so I can align images which overlap others. This wouldn't affect the final output, but only when composing.

Question:

1. Are the directory names (dzc_output_files, ...) hardwired and will they ever change?

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

DanCory — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:22:47 GMT

Mike/James - The Deep Zoom file format is public, so you can write your own tools that run on any platform to generate the files. See the spec at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645077(VS.95).aspx

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:10:36 GMT

jaybo - thanks a lot for the feedback! Those are both great suggestions. We will look into supporting Option 1 in our upcoming version, and Option 2 is a bit more complicated, so we may defer that to a later date.

The directory names are hard coded, and the main reason is so that they can work with our precompiled XAP file. Since we don't actually compile and build the Silverlight project, we can't change to anything but the hard-coded name.

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Maxime — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:27:55 GMT

When I export my project, I haven't got any dzc_output_files folder or dzc xml.

I only have 2 files in "GeneratedImages" : Metadata.xml and SparseImageSceneGraph.xml.

What happened ? :s

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:57:03 GMT

What probably happened is that you tried to nest an image very deeply by zooming in a lot. There is a 2 billion virtualized pixel limit in the current version, so when you go beyond that level, the encoder stops working.

We will be fixing this in the next version of Deep Zoom Composer where, as you are nearing that limit, you will find out on the design surface itself.

Cheers!

Kirupa

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Michael — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:13:58 GMT

Is there a location where I can find out how to add a Full Screen button and maybe constrain the pan ability to the edge of the image collection?

I can find all sorts of far more complex issues. I'd be happy just with the full screen button. :)

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:47:08 GMT

Michael - your timing could not have been better! I just wrote an article on getting full screen: http://www.kirupa.com/blend_silverlight/fullscreen.htm

I will try to provide more examples addressing the things you mention in the future, so please do let us know of your more complex issues.

Cheers!

Kirupa :)

"Look What You Can Do with Silveright 2" Part 3: Introducing Deep Zoom

Lindsay's Blog O' Stuff v1.9 — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:34:40 GMT

Today we covered Deep Zoom, based on Seadragon technology, which allows the users of our Silverlight

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Steve — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:04:13 GMT

I have a need to programmatically add images to the image - ie. think of a map image - then I want to place images on top of it - ie. think of a 'rest stop' image showing where all rest stops are on a map.

This is dynamically generated, reading from a datasource of the x,y locations of all rest stops.

So - it must be done on the fly. Each image will need to support clicking on the image to popup a window giving information on that rest stop.

I've done all this on a web page, but I want the deep zoom capability.

How would I go about doing all this?

Silverlight 2 e Deep Zoom Composer: disponibile una nuova versione del tool.

Discussion about design and user experience — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:41:44 GMT

A pochi giorni dalla presentazione ufficiale del plug-in Silverlight 2 vi segnalo la disponibilità online

Deep Zoom Composer: disponibile una nuova versione del tool per sviluppare applicazioni Silverlight 2 con Deep Zoom.

Discussion about design and user experience — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:59:52 GMT

A pochi giorni dalla presentazione ufficiale del plug-in Silverlight 2 vi segnalo la disponibilità online

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

kigho — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:23:33 GMT

SparseImageTool Problem.

Hi,

I downloaded the beta 2 version of the deepzoom composer and I am trying to use its sparseimagetool.exe utility to generate an image pyramid.

the scenegraph file I passed as parameter contains subimages with different ZOrders.

The utility produces the .dzi file which I plug to an msi control in code-behind on startup of my web page.

However, when I read the subimage.ZIndex property of the sub images in the msi control, they are all 0.

Question :

1. How do I use the deepzoom composer to generate the .dzi file using the scenegraphfile I created ?

2. Is there a current bug in the sparseimagetool.exe utility that accounts for this issue ?

Thanks for keeping me updated .

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Wilfred Pinto — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:19:31 GMT

Hi Kirupa,

What would be nice is the ability to add more images to a pre-existing collection without regenerating all the tiles! ImageTool.exe works well to incrementally update the dzc_output_images folder so how about a ThumbnailsTool.exe command-line app to generate the dzc_output_files folder given the SparseImageSceneGraph.xml file as input?

I was thinking of doing it myself but why bother! You guys have the code and it's just a matter of repackaging it into another command line executable.

Thanks

Wilfred Pinto

http://projectsilverlight.blogspot.com

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Orendain — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:53:16 GMT

Just picked up Deep Zoom today and got hooked. I downloaded and installed all the needed stuff. I made a mistake looking at the old DeepZoom tutorial but kinda figured there must be something new when the Window with 4 options popped up after hitting the "Export" button. I was happy to see my little test work on the Browser (Preview in Browser) but when I tried the "Edit in Expression Blend" option, I got an error message: Invalid Arguments X The command-in line arguments are not valid: The project ".....\DeepZoomOutpot.sln" could not be found." I thought you stated, "...provides all of the hooks necessary for you to have a working Silverlight 2 Beta 2 application without you doing anything extra." I promise you I tried to understand how to resolve it. I tried to look at the other Deep Zoom examples (Kirupa's MetaData and that Martin Tirion's Presentation Tool)but being more of a designer with very little knowledge of coding I'm running in to road blocks. Can you help? Am I being stupid for using Blend 2.5?

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Hugues — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:29:47 GMT

I just downloaded Deep Zoom and started to play with it, great so far !

One issue when exporting is the size of the preview in the generated Html page. It is limited to an area of about 800 x 600. Is there a way to change that so the preview area is full screen ?

I read in one article that it is because of the defalt template. can we edit that.

hnizer@hotmail.com

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:48:30 GMT

Hughes - yes you can! You can open the project in Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview (http://blogs.msdn.com/expression/archive/2008/06/06/download-expression-blend-2-5-june-2008-preview-and-deep-zoom-composer.aspx)

Our documentation for editing the default template is nonexistant (for now), so please feel free to e-mail me directly at kirupac.at.microsoft.com for further assistance.

Thanks,

Kirupa

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Jeyaseelan — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:45:10 GMT

When i Zoom my image without silverlight so the image quality is going bad, does silverlight solve this problem?

Does Deepzoom came with Silverligh Beta2.0

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Sylvain Cachia & Eric Carroll — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:47:35 GMT

Hello,

we noticed a bug in deepzoom composer.

Here it is : when you change the project directory and try to open your dzprj file, DC updates the <sourcedirectory> and <TreeDirectory> and kills all your <ImageList>.

Ugly isn't it?

Thank you for all you can do to correct.

Bye

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

suru83 — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:56:05 GMT

Hi,

I'm still confused how to get the image tags working in the new version of DZC. The zoom feature on a tagged image is excellent, but still can't figure out how do the tags I add to an image must actually appear when I click on the image.

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:20:05 GMT

Suru - the image tags set via the Tag property are not read by the default viewer. Only the Tag Browser template reads them, and you can see what it does (and how it works) here: http://blog.kirupa.com/?p=212

No version of DZC has ever read the image tag values by default, and the latest version only goes so far as providing you with a player that reads them.

We are evaluating providing the source files for these templates as well (similar to what you had in the previous releases).

Cheers!

Kirupa :)

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

suru83 — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:34:44 GMT

I totally get how it works through ur explanation at http://blog.kirupa.com/?p=212 , but thats not really what i get out of it. I did try tagging my small image placed on a large image... and the zoom was smooth, but the tag display from metadata.xml is something i'm not clear about. It seems to me we need to code the reading and displaying of these tags.. so I'm working on that..

any cues to help me would be great.

thanks for the posts.

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:04:17 GMT

Suru - I think you are mixing up the various output XML files we generate.

If you are referring to reading anything out of metadata.xml, then my blog post outlines what you need to know to read it.

If you are trying to read any other information such as the tooltip, inline navigation, area, etc., then metadata.xml will not help you. There is another XML file we generate called scene.xml, and that conains everything you need.

Scene.xml is the XAML file (saved with the .xml extension) that defines what the player looks like, and inside this XML file, we embed the various metadata as part of the player itself. This is done to ensure the player is self-contained inside a single XAP without any references to an external XML file.

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

suru83 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:01:45 GMT

may be ... but i was taking my cues from here : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd943052.aspx

and that code also does everything i want, so i felt it was only metadata that needs to be downloaded and read to display my tags/descriptions of the image. and thats what the code claims to do.. m i wrong?

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:27:15 GMT

I am not sure where the additional fields he is referring to are coming from. Metadata.xml only contains:

<Image>

<Tag />

</Image>

What he may be doing is adding his own nodes to metadata.xml after Deep Zoom Composer exports them. That is a valid way of adding more filters than just what the Tag value provides :)

Cheers!

Kirupa

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

suru83 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:26:42 GMT

:) still thats not my answer yet..

simply adding data/descriptions to the <tag> in metadata.xml is not displaying it on the browser. the same link has code for the purpose,

i.e. downloading and reading xml..(i do not really know if there another way to achieve it) altogether, I'm still not able to get it working ..

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

suru83 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:28:01 GMT

Hi,

thanks for holding patience with me with all my Qs :)

I seek 1 more advise from you.. about the visibility limit feature in this new version of DZC.. i was unable to find anything about it on google too.

Is there any way I can get some guidance on how those parameters can be set..

I would be a great help.

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:42:08 GMT

Hello again Suru. This is a brand new feature that others haven't really done programmatically or manually in earlier versions of DZC.

In a nutshell, this feature allows for something known as semantic zooming. For example, you can have two images overlaid on top of each other. By default in Deep Zoom, only the top-most image would appear.

What you can do with the Visbility features is toggle at which zoom ranges the images would be visible or invisible. This means you can say that initially the bottom image would be visible, but once you start to zoom in, the top image will be visible instead.

The easiest way to currently use this feature is to right-click on an image, and from the menu that appears, go to Set Visibility Limits | Set as Minimum or Set as Maximum.

If you set something as the Maximum, your image will be visible at only that zoom level and higher, and if you set something as the Minimum, your image will be visible at that zoom level and lower.

There are some bug fixes we made to better handle image tiles at certain zoom factors, so you may see some ghosting of tiles.

Cheers!

Kirupa :)

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Suru83 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:22:31 GMT

thats a good feature m sure..

if i set a visibility limit as minimum for one of the images...on trying to export the option to export as collection grays out?.. :( is it supposed to be so..?

and I'm not sure what are parameters to be put in the min/max fields of visibility limits..

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Suru83 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:52:11 GMT

for eg. I put the visibility limit for min as 1, what will this mean..

say if i have to make an image visible only at the lowest zoom level or even set this max zoom level... please tell me how is it done.

looks to me the user guide does not mention this feature yet ..

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

suru83 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:19:09 GMT

Hi,

I'm sorry but I'm facing a lot of issues while using DZC.. i dont know if they are bugs. It works fine with one png image that has transparent background, but i add another such image ..it is invisible on the board or even later.. only the outline is identified.. what could be the issue here?

also I tried adding about 5 more images on the board with different visibility limits for them.. the output was almost zero. there was no action at all on my webpage on exporting.

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

KHappe — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:13:46 GMT

Im using version 0.9.000.9 and I am having a lot of issues with it. It crashed on a regular basis. In composing mode the tile level control on the right is miss-behaving a lot. It keeps cycling through each tile.

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

jacqi — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:35:38 GMT

I just down loaded it yesterday, and I have a giant painting and some high res images that i am tying to fit onto it by combining the High Res with a portion of the background. They appear to be lined up and matching when in Compose, but when i Export it, the edges are off. Any suggestions?

re: What’s new in Deep Zoom Composer!

Kirupa (MS) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:38:46 GMT

jacqi - when you mention the edges are off, can you provide an approximate value for the offset in pixels?