NZsynth – How It Was Done

nparker — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:10:26 GMT

Previously I wrote and demoed the NZsynth application that was built for the WEB09 keynote. This post is detailing how it was made and introducing version two (Zoom all the way in using mouse wheel then double-click for popup image).

WATCH THE VIDEO that goes end-to-end on the development of the application (mainly building the mosaic and the extension that Tim Tate created to make the tiles clickable).

The video is also downloadable from Channel9

The Code

It goes without saying that this code is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights it is demo ware and should be treated as such.

Flickr Image Download Code

Mosaic WCF REST Service (Including Flickr Database File)

NZsynth

Demo at http://possi.bility.co.nz/ Hot keys in previous post

Tim’s Silverlight 3 Code and Demo

There is no “go live” for Silverlight 3 yet so what I’m going to do next is for “informational/ testing purposes only”. If you are a developer and happen to have either the Silverlight 3 Beta - Windows Developer Runtime or the Silverlight 3 Beta - Mac Developer Runtime installed pop over to http://possi.bility.co.nz/timtate/ to look at a running version of Tim’s solution.

NZsynth V2 Source (excluding image tiles)

Demo at http://possi.bility.co.nz/nzsynth (Zoom right in using mouse wheel then double-click for popup image)

Key tools

WEBPI to install Visual Studio Silverlight Development Tools & SQL Server 2008 Express
AndreaMosaic
HD Make
Deep Zoom Composer
WCF REST Starter Kit
FlickrNet

Other Resources/ Examples

Jellyfish Deep Zoom
Deep Zoom Image Generation with DeepZoomTools.DLL
My post DeepZoom-Tastic
http://tr.im/photosEFAS (DeepZoom Pix Photos from Expression for Art’s Sake)
Miss March and Other Distractions (Parental Advisory)
Deep Zoom++ : Build Dynamic Deep Zoom Applications with Open Source

All this got me thinking how this idea could be extended further?

National Geographic have been doing some interesting work with photosynth recently. Check out the Sphinx below.

This is why I was intrigued to see they too have developed a mosaic experience called Infinite Photograph. It is not as smooth or free flowing as the nzsynth mosaic demo but it has a great touch that it repeats on itself after a few layers giving you a “feeling” that you can zoom forever. Also double-clicking images brings up more details like in Tim and my examples.

I guess beyond this we then need to think about video and using dynamic frames in a form of “massive” stop motion animation. If you haven’t seen it yet the YouTube Mosaic Music Video may give you some insight into where my mind is heading.

Nigel Parker's Outside Line : REST

NZsynth – How It Was Done

WCF REST Starter Kit