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Using Deepzoom Composer creates a nice ClientBin and a nice HTML page that works in HTML.

Using the Deepzoom API, I can create the processed pyramid images and some metadata in some xml files and that is all. So now, once I have those images and the metadata, which is half the battle, how should I go about building some Silverlight and HTML (programmatically) to use that metadata and the images, without having to go and reverse engineer all of what Deepzoom Composer is creating??

It is important for my purposes that I can autogenerate the whole shebang, as Deepzoom Composer does. Clicking around in Visual Studio isn't necessarily going to cut it.

At the very least I need to be able to switch out the image that is shown in the final Silverlight Deepzoom app from time to time if not completely rebuild the entire thing magically. (I am hoping that msbuild will not need to be involved here as I would also like this to be freely redistributable.)

I'm just looking for some quality reference material and some ideas here. Link, books, blog entries, etc.

Thanks!

-Chris.

Update

The output from Deep Zoom Composer using Outputtype="Silverlight Deep Zoom" and "Export as a composition (single image)"; Format=JPEG; Quality=95; Image Width=800 generates a bunch of files into a named folder within the "Exported Data" folder. There is also a "Working Data" and a "Source Images" folder.

The "Exported Data" folder has a folder within it for each export you did from Deep Zoom Composer. Within those folders, the content depends on whether you did Composition or Composite, but take a look at a Composition one because it is simpler. The contents include:

Test.html (which contains an embedded Silverlight 2 object with Source=Default.xap)

Default.xap (which contains a Headlight.Player.dll and an AppManifest.xaml file within it)

A "Generated Images" Folder which then contains the folder "dzc_output_files", and files dzc_output.xml, scene.xml, and SparseImageSceneGraph.xml

SparseImageSceneGraph.xml is a 1KB file that has SceneNode elements that have FileName elements which reference the full directory paths of the images back up in the Source Images directory at the overall project level.

scene.xml has a lot of stuff in it and in my case is 76KB and it seems to have been generated by the Headlight Authoring Tool according to an embedded comment.

dzc_output.xml is another simple xml file that is only 1KB and has an Image that has a Size element and some DisplayRect elements and that is all.

I am looking for a way to generate all of this stuff automatically. All the Deepzoom API does is generate the some simple Xml files and folders of images of varying resolutions.

There is no way to view the output.

I guess what I'm looking for is like an API to the Headlight Authoring Tool, which probably isn't public yet.

Chris Morley
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  • Does your requirement include composition, I.e. the stitching together of separate images. Or are you simply looking at creating an image pyramid for a single high-res image? – AnthonyWJones Jun 25 '09 at 13:39
  • I wrote a method of pre-stitching my images into one master image before sending it to the Deepzoom API. Pyramid calculation is working for me with one image in the input image list. My question is how do I then embed that output into an HTML with a Silverlight control. The Composer output has a lot more "stuff". Posting update to question with some more detail shortly.... – Chris Morley Jun 25 '09 at 15:50

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This link I think is the answer to my question:

http://blogs.sqlxml.org/bryantlikes/archive/2008/11/27/deep-zoom-image-generation-with-deepzoomtools-dll.aspx

In the course of my travels I also found these related links:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jaimer/archive/2008/06/23/working-with-collections-in-deep-zoom.aspx

http://jimlynn.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/programmatically-create-deep-zoom-collections/

http://www.slideshare.net/goodfriday/deep-zoom-build-dynamic-deep-zoom-applications-with-open-source

http://blogs.msdn.com/expression/archive/2008/11/26/hello-deepzoomtools-dll-deep-zoom-image-tile-generation-made-easy.aspx

https://silverlight.net/forums/t/100017.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/jaimer/archive/2008/03/31/a-deepzoom-primer-explained-and-coded.aspx

http://www.silverlightrecipes.com/2008/03/silverlight-20-deep-zoom-using.html

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ViewingALOTOfImagesEffectivelyPlus700ObamaNewspaperCoversInSilverlightDeepZoom.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/jstegman/archive/2008/04/21/dynamic-image-generation-in-silverlight.aspx

http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2008/06/25/10536.aspx

Chris Morley
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There are lots of helpful items in MSDN and on the web (a quick bing/google will find them). I'm not sure that any touch on dynamically changing the deepzoom'd image, but I expect that it is possible with some tweaks to the UserControl's used to host the image.

For example:

Jeff Yates
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