Deep Zoom Composer - June 2009 Preview!
We know you’ve been waiting, and we know you just can’t wait any longer, so here it is:
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Download Deep Zoom Composer |
As always, please uninstall all existing versions of Deep Zoom Composer before installing the new version.
A few months ago, we asked you what you all wanted to see in Deep Zoom Composer, and a lot of you gave some really great ideas. The following sections highlight just a small list of the new features we’ve added and improved based on your ideas, and our subsequent blog posts will delve into these features in greater detail.
Navigation Support
A common request has been around doing more with your Deep Zoom images than just being able to zoom in and out on them. In this release, we have introduced some cool navigation features which allow you to navigate between images or areas of images in a web/hyperlink-like fashion. You can also link images to external URLs as well.
Better Memory Usage
Deep Zoom Composer now uses significantly less memory than it did before, so you should now be able to work with more images in your composition.
First Draft of Updated Collection Exporting We have now added the ability for you to import images, tag them directly from your image list in the Compose view, pick from a set of pre-defined templates, and export. All of this was done without you having to first place your image on the design surface.
This is an area we are going to significantly improve in our upcoming releases, so stay tuned for some further updates on what we have planned.
Reporting If you are an advertiser, knowing which images get the most attention is pretty valuable. We have put in place some early functionality that allows you to do this.
...and More!
There are numerous little improvements we have made, and we’ll try to mention them as we go along in future Deep Zoom Composer related posting.
Where Next?
A lot of the features we have introduced are a bit rough on the edges, and we are going to be investing heavily the UI/styling/usability of them for our upcoming releases. Please feel free to comment below on things you like or don’t like, and that will help us prioritize things for future releases.
Deep Zoom Composer is a collaborative effort of various groups at Microsoft, and for this release, we would like to give a HUGE thanks to the team at Microsoft Innovation Labs in Israel who contributed to making all of the above features possible for this release.
Enjoy!
Janete & Kirupa
Comments
Anonymous
June 19, 2009
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 19, 2009
Thank you for submitting this cool story - Trackback from DotNetShoutoutAnonymous
June 19, 2009
Thank you for submitting this cool story - Trackback from progg.ruAnonymous
June 20, 2009
Looks like the same link is used as with older versions. This creates a problem with caching. My downloader says I already have downloaded this program but I have not. Would also like to see the version number somewhere on the announcement pages and/or suffixed to the download file.Anonymous
June 20, 2009
Selecting the Export option invariably causes it to crash. Grrrr.Anonymous
June 20, 2009
Hi Kevin - I just replied to your forum post as well. Does this happen for any project, or just old projects you have opened? If you do not have any images, does switching to Export crash? What OS and video card are you running on? Thanks, KirupaAnonymous
June 20, 2009
So disappointing!!! This June version still CANNOT handle Seadragon Ajax outtput properly as report in http://social.expression.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/deepzoomcomposer/thread/d303a12a-9e53-42c1-b83a-b40defe96cfe on April 28, 2008. Some people reported the same problem earlier. Am I missing anything? Please advise!!!!!!!!!!!Anonymous
June 20, 2009
Hi Peter - how large are your photos? What format are your photos in? I just tried with around 100 wallpapers that are about 1600x1200, and DZC was able to handle them properly when exported to Seadragon Ajax. My PC does have 4 GB of RAM, but the RAM usage during export never went above 500 MB though, so I am not sure if RAM is the culprit this time around. Cheers! KirupaAnonymous
June 20, 2009
Hi Kirupa, I'll only reply here, to avoid clogging the bandwidth... I've just established that it only happens with old projects (they were already old at the time of the previous update, although they worked find with that one (I tried it)). I'm running Vista SP2 with an ATI Radeon X1300. Since I now know it works OK with new projects I'm not too worried myself, I can just recreate the projects if necessary.Anonymous
June 20, 2009
As always, please uninstall all existing versions of Deep Zoom Composer before installing the new versionAnonymous
June 21, 2009
Kevin - do you mean that your project was created in a version earlier than our April release? In either case, would it be possible for you to e-mail me your .dzprj file to kirupac[at]microsoft.com While we may not support older projects, we certainly shouldn't be crashing either =) Thanks, KirupaAnonymous
June 21, 2009
In this Issue: Brian Genisio , Cristian Merighi , Terence Tsang , Gavin Wignall , and Alex Golesh ( 2Anonymous
June 21, 2009
Hi Kirupa, Yes, my project was created in an earlier version than the April release. It's about 3.5 megs zipped - let me know whether it would be a problem for you receiving an email that size.Anonymous
June 22, 2009
Kevin - please send them to kirupac[at]microsoft.com and kirupa[at]kirupa.com. I'm hoping at least one of them is able to handle the file as an attachment =) Thanks, KirupaAnonymous
June 26, 2009
Can't open program. Always get an error message.Anonymous
June 26, 2009
Betty - what error message are you receiving?Anonymous
June 27, 2009
Hi again Kirup - I sent the project to both addresses the other day - the Microsoft account blocked it but hopefully the other one got through.Anonymous
June 27, 2009
PS. Apologies for your name getting truncated in my last reply - I think that was a case of not hitting the key hard enough. Oops.Anonymous
June 27, 2009
Kevin - I looked at the project and I think I have an idea what may be causing the problem :) We'll try to have this crash fixed soon. Thanks! KirupaAnonymous
June 29, 2009
Quick question on the new Deep Zoom Composer: When exporting to a Silverlight 3 Deep Zoom solution, I used to get the Visual Studio solution, now I only get the Default.xap I loved it that I was able to change aspects of the Silverlight project, is this feature gone for good? Or have I missed a switch? Thanks! Sascha.Anonymous
June 29, 2009
Hi Sascha, We did remove that feature for the new, enhanced player we are using. Currently, we are looking into bringing it back. Thanks, Kirupa :)Anonymous
June 29, 2009
Gorgeous! Thanks! Keep up the great work. -Sascha.Anonymous
June 30, 2009
Zooming has never been so much fun, thank you!Anonymous
June 30, 2009
Hi, I used to use deep zoom composer to generate Silverlight test pages that I could put on my website but now it appears that the generated output needs to be run through IIS. Is there any way around that? If its not on IIS then the silverlight just never loads! Other than that I'm getting on really well with the new version! Thanks!Anonymous
June 30, 2009
Hi Ed! Because we are loading metadata and various other pieces of information after your XAP loads, you do need some environment capable of processing HTTP requests. Any web server will do - IIS, Apache, etc. While we could take some steps to allow previewing directly from the file system, that may be something we won't have time for in this release unfortunately. Glad to hear everything else is working well though. Cheers! KirupaAnonymous
June 30, 2009
I just realized you're Kirupa from Kirupa.com lol. Your site has been priceless to me! Thank you for everything over the years!!Anonymous
July 01, 2009
The previous vesion of DZC had a manual/how to guide. Is there one for this version? It's changed quite a bit.Anonymous
July 02, 2009
KathR - it will be updated soon :)