presenting and referencing high resolution images on the web

Presenting and Referencing High Resolution Images on the Web

Joseph PadfieldUK Museums on the Web 2011, 25th November 2011

Introduction

• As imaging systems and computers have developed over the last decade the possible size and quality of the images, available to museums, has continued to increase.

• Although there have been many improvements in the quality and availability of colour reproductions the size and number of images that can be included in traditional print media has remained limited.

• Digital versions of printed publication and simple web pages can include quite high resolution images, but as the number and size of the images increases the files sizes of this type of presentation can become prohibitive.

• In contrast, by using appropriate software, massive images can be presented on the web and used to inform, support and add to the presentations and discussions surrounding museum objects.

Summary

• Provide a brief description of the scale of the image resources that can be used within the National Gallery.

• Introduce IIPImage: an open source, web based, image server system for a viewing and working with high resolution images.

• Describe the process used by the National Gallery to present and reference whole and sections of high resolution images in relation to printed and standard web based publications.

• Provide examples of the some of the additional IIPImage systems in current use and under development within the National Gallery.

How big is a “big” Image ?

• If a camera can capture and image 10,000 pixels wide:

• NG268: Paolo Veronese, The Adoration of the Kings, 1573, (355.6 x 320 cm)

• NG1888: Jan Gossaert, 'The Virgin and Child', 1527, Oil on oak, (30.7 x 24.3 cm)

Relative Resolution

• If a camera can capture and image 10,000 pixels wide:

• NG268: Paolo Veronese, The Adoration of the Kings, 1573, (355.6 x 320 cm)

• 3.125 ppmm

• NG1888: Jan Gossaert, 'The Virgin and Child', 1527, Oil on oak, (30.7 x 24.3 cm)

• 41.152 ppmm

Relative Resolution

NG268: Paolo Veronese, The Adoration of the Kings, 1573, (355.6 x 320 cm)

How Big is a Big Image ?

176 X-ray plates

Scanned at 300DPI (12 ppmm)

43197 x 39461 px

1-band, 16-bit, 3.18 GB

600 DPI - 12.5 GB


The National Gallery digital image collection

• X-ray radiography mosaics, scanned at 300DPI are commonly between 1-2 GB.

• Single shot visible images of 2-300MB are almost beginning to be considered as small.

• Visible image mosaics are beginning to become more common, again producing images over 1GB in size.

• Full images and high resolution details can be retaken multiple time when a painting is under going conservation treatment.

• Additional infrared, ultra-violet, microscopy, multi-spectral and even hyper-spectral imaging continue to add to this growing collection of images.

• As a currently extreme example: the recent Google Art project produced a visible image mosaic for Holbein's, The Ambassadors, which is about 22GB

• With less than 3000 paintings, The National Gallery is a relatively small collection.

• But the growing collection of digital images is already well into the 10s of thousands and now take up terabytes of the disk space.

• The National Gallery has been investigating methods of working with these high resolution images for many years now.

• Initially on local computers with open source software like VIPS/Nip2, (http://www.vips.ecs.soton.ac.uk/).

• But in more recent years making use of web-based open source projects like IIPImage (http://iipimage.sourceforge.net/) to disseminate these images to growing internal and external audience

The National Gallery digital image collection

Presenting and Working with High Resolution Images

on the Web

http://iipimage.sourceforge.net

iipimage.sourceforge.net

• IIPImage is an advanced high-performance feature-rich imaging server system for web-based streamed viewing and zooming of ultra high-resolution images.

• 8-bit or 16-bit images, with support for: CIELAB colorimetric, scientific and multispectral images.

• Pyramidal Images

• Tiff and Jpeg 2000 support

• Open source flexible development

• Works with a variety or existing custom clients in Javascript, Java and Flash.

• The IIPImage server is also compatible with several 3rd party protocols and clients. In particular, Zoomify and Deepzoom.

Publishing and Referencing High Resolution Images


• A public facing image resource has been set up to provide viewing access to high resolution images which can be directly referenced and linked to multiple other systems or publications.

http://research.ng-london.org.uk/projects

• Simple relational database defining a hierarchical set of projects and relating them to specific sets of images.

• Images can be linked to multiple projects, but only need to be stored once.

• Apache rewrite tools used to convert simple URLs into variables which are then used by a generic set of web pages written in PHP, making use of a custom Javascript IIPImage client.


• New projects can be added by simply editing the database rather than needing create new web pages.

• The details for each project and or image are automatically used to complete a set of structured templates.

• Easy navigation options allow users to move between images and related projects within the system.

• Options for external links are also provided to connect each project to other appropriate web resources.

Example:

Linking to web basedCatalogue entries

Example:

Supporting traditional print publications

Example:

Sharing Image Links

Sharing image links

• http://research.ng-london.org.uk/projects/technical-bulletin/vol-32/billinge_syson_spring2011/ng1661/images/N-1661-00-000030-XS/5/5217/2890

• Projects: • technical-bulletin -> vol-32• billinge_syson_spring2011 -> ng1661

• Image: N-1661-00-000030-XS

• Zoom Level: 5

• Location: 5217 x 2890

Ongoing development of IIPImage based solutions

Ongoing development of IIPImage based solutions

• Some additional examples of custom Javascript clients:

• Internal access to digital images within the National Gallery, organised by painting.

• Working with sets of registered images: X-ray, Infrared, Before, during and after treatment images, etc.

• Annotating Zoom-able images.

Photographic server: image viewer

Registered image viewer

Annotating Zoom-able images

Presenting and Referencing High Resolution Images on the Web

Joseph PadfieldUK Museums on the Web 2011, 25th November 2011

presenting and referencing high resolution images on the web

Technology