Silverlight Deep Zoom Server Control?

1
votes

The Silverlight Deep Zoom was one of those cool things that I heard about when it was introduced a few years ago, but I never got around to actually trying it out. But now is the time, and I was so surprised to learn how complicated it apparently is to get the thing working, that I’m worried that I’m missing something here.

As far as I understand, using Silverlight Deep Zoom requires you to

  • Write an Silverlight app to embed on your site, which is not exactly trivial with no prior Silverlight experience, as you have to implement the various actions (zoom, pan) yourself and include button icons.
  • Create the Deep Zoom pyramid files “manually”.

I found plenty of examples on how to do both, but it’s a far cry from sticking a control on your page, set the original image source and height and width, which honestly was all I figured it would require.

So: Before I go ahead and implement my own,

  • Do you know any component (free or commercial) that wraps the above in a nice way?
  • Do you know any alternatives to Silverlight Deep Zoom? JavaScript? HTML5?
  • I got this feeling that the technology is considered somewhat outdated today?
1
.netasp.netsilverlightcustom-server-controlsdeepzoom

1 Answers

1
votes

Quite a few points, will try to cover them all:

  • Silverlight Deep Zoom requires a Silverlight app...

Yes (hence Silverlight in the name :))

Is that difficult... not really. It is just files copied to the right place on a server.

This example is hosted under a simple WordPress blog and took 10 mins to build

  • You have to implement the buttons etc...

No You can use the free DeepZoom Composer output out-of-the-box. You only create your own pyramids for more advanced on-the-fly generation.

  • You need to create a pyramid of files manually...

No (use the DeepZoom composer)

So in answer to your last points:

  • Do you know any component (free or commercial) that wraps the above in a nice way?

No need. It is not as difficult as you imagine.

  • Do you know any alternatives to Silverlight Deep Zoom? JavaScript? HTML5?

None yet although I am sure something will be invented

  • I got this feeling that the technology is considered somewhat outdated today?

Not in my books, but I don't know where you get your information.