Layered Image Delivery System for High-Resolution Web Interactivity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for delivering and interacting with images on web pages face challenges such as slow delivery times due to high image resolution requirements, necessitating lower resolution images that compromise zoom quality and interactive functions, and often require additional software plugins, leading to complex and time-consuming user experiences.
Innovation Solution
A system that delivers images in layers using DHTML, allowing for immediate perception of a single high-resolution image while others are loaded, with features like image splitting for interrupted connections and a transparent layer for command interpretation, enabling advanced interactive functions like zooming, rotating, and measuring without additional plugins.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If high resolution images are delivered to users, then image quality and zoom functionality are improved, but delivery time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments image delivery into multiple layers with different resolution levels. A base layer provides low-resolution images for quick loading, while additional higher-resolution layers are available for zooming. This segmentation allows the system to deliver acceptable image quality rapidly while maintaining the option for high-resolution viewing when needed, directly resolving the contradiction between image quality and delivery speed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic image delivery where the system adapts the resolution and quality of images based on user interaction. Initially, low-resolution images are delivered for fast loading; when users zoom or request higher quality, the system dynamically switches to higher-resolution layers. This dynamic adjustment resolves the contradiction by making delivery speed the default while allowing quality improvement on demand.
2Productivity
If multiple images are combined into a single file for delivery, then delivery efficiency is improved, but interactivity and user control are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments images into separate, independently deliverable files organized in layers. Each layer contains specific image data that can be delivered independently, allowing the system to maintain delivery efficiency through structured organization while preserving full user interactivity. Users can access, zoom, and manipulate individual images without being constrained by a combined file structure, thus resolving the contradiction between delivery efficiency and ease of operation.
3Adaptability or versatility
If additional software plugins are required for interactive functions, then functionality is enhanced, but system complexity and user burden increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal image layering system that provides multiple interactive functions (zooming, panning, rotating, measuring) through a single integrated framework. This multi-functional approach eliminates the need for separate plugins for each function, as the layering system handles all interactions uniformly. Users gain enhanced functionality without increased complexity, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and device complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A system, including apparatuses, software and methods, is disclosed for capturing and delivering images as to which various interactive functions are enabled for a user. The images introduced to the system can come from any one of a variety of sources, including from a digital camera. A graphical user interface permits a user to customize a set of interactive functions to be enabled for a given set of images. The interactively enabled images can be delivered via a webpage to a user, for example, via email, the Internet or downloaded from a disk or from disk drive on a computer on which the webpage is stored. Each image is delivered to a user in its own layer of software, which permits complex sets of images of relatively high resolution to be delivered to users without any appreciable delay associated with the delivery or the need for the user to have additional software, such as a plug-in to receive images and enable interactive functions with respect to the images. Whenever an interactive function is being carried out, a viewer perceives only one image layer at a given time, but the currently viewable image layer can be changed rapidly, so that the user can perceive the illusion of motion, including virtual rotation of an object depicted in a set of images.