Help me understand Seadragon!
March 11, 2010 7:50 AM
Help me understand how to host Seadragon files on my linux server!
I run an online journal, which is hosted on a Dreamhost private server. Standard configuration - Linux, Apache etc. A potential contributor has asked me if he can incorporate Seadragon content into a piece he's working on. So I started looking into Seadragon and there's something I'm just not getting. It looks like it generates static xml files in addition to the images, but I don't know how those get accessed & rendered in browsers. Also, it looks like Seadragon content can be deployed without Silverlight. Can you help?
Specific questions:
Can a standard Linux server host and deliver Seadragon content? i.e. is this exclusively a Microsoft server thing?
Is there a detailed tutorial online on what needs to be done on the server end?
The author will be generating the Seadragon content. It looks to me like there are multiple ways to do it and multiple file output formats -- is there one specific one he should use?
I run an online journal, which is hosted on a Dreamhost private server. Standard configuration - Linux, Apache etc. A potential contributor has asked me if he can incorporate Seadragon content into a piece he's working on. So I started looking into Seadragon and there's something I'm just not getting. It looks like it generates static xml files in addition to the images, but I don't know how those get accessed & rendered in browsers. Also, it looks like Seadragon content can be deployed without Silverlight. Can you help?
Specific questions:
Can a standard Linux server host and deliver Seadragon content? i.e. is this exclusively a Microsoft server thing?
Is there a detailed tutorial online on what needs to be done on the server end?
The author will be generating the Seadragon content. It looks to me like there are multiple ways to do it and multiple file output formats -- is there one specific one he should use?
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In general the viewer will constantly be asking for new images from the server, which reflect the current zoom level and position that the client is viewing. The XML is a map to let the client know which files to request.
The files can be as simple as a single zipped archive, to a giant nested set of folders with thousands of tiny images. More info.
For the viewer, you can use the Silverlight control or an AJAX one. Silverlight will be smoother, but AJAX will not require any additional downloads.
You will want to tailor the content output type to fit which viewer you want to do. It looks like the AJAX control prefers a .dzi file, along with a nested set of folders for the image pyramid. Deep Zoom Composer can output in this format, as can other tools.
posted by Diddly at 8:06 AM on March 11, 2010