Deep zoom online print preview

Virtual magnifying glass ZoomA will be globally released as the new Canto Cumulus 8 add-on on 12 July to 'deep zoom' and pan across images displayed as a preview in Cumulus Sites and Web Client modules.

Developed locally by Canto partner Aimtec, the Cumulus add-on works by delivering only those parts of the image that you wish to see, no more waiting for huge downloads to see the details you need. ZoomA windows are fully resizable and there is even a full screen mode to let you view as much as possible at one time.

Glenn Lawrence, director of Aimtec says his program brings a whole new look to Cumulus “with a simple and intuitive display of multiple images for close up comparisons, high quality proofing and accurate diagnostics - not to mention fine art appreciation."

"Any organisation interested in providing an exciting and engaging way for visitors to interact with their Cumulus collection would benefit from ZoomA," said Lawrence (pictured).

He says Cumulus and other DAM (Digital Asset Management) systems currently allow you to download the whole image or view a low-res preview.

ZoomA uses deep zoom technology to only deliver the parts of the image you are looking at, meaning you don’t have to wait for the whole image to download. “That not only results in a better user experience, but the key thing is that it increases productivity in the workflow.”

The bitmap-based ZoomA image preview is suitable for printers sharing proofs with customers, as it would allow customers to review those proofs without downloading them.

“One of the great things about Cumulus is that it can render hundreds of different image and document types. Anything Cumulus can render, ZoomA can handle and deliver over the web. By combining Cumulus and ZoomA we have developed a complete Deep Zoom Image Server," said Lawrence.

Future plans for ZoomA include user functions of drop tags and annotations to be placed onto the image itself if the user wants to draw a printer’s attention to issues.

David Diamond, director of marketing for Canto US says with digital asset management as a core benefit, the process works much better when there are not multiple copies of an image flying around. “The benefit with ZoomA is that the file can remain where it lives and full resolution detailed previews are available virtually anywhere on earth through a web browser.”

“The greatest thing about ZoomA from my perspective and also from the print industry’s perspective is that when you’re dealing with high-resolution images the web becomes a pretty cumbersome delivery vehicle, particularly in regard to previews. You want to see the details in a high-resolution image but you don’t necessarily want to have to download the image to see it or you may not have the permissions to download the image to see it,” said Diamond.

Cumulus can be configured to deliver the original image, or a pre-processed watermarked version

Right now ZoomA is dependant on flash, but in the next version this will not be a requirement as Cumulus is a pure web browser application, and regardless of where the Cumulus system is based you have global access to whoever needs to see it.

“Viewing ZoomA from an approval workflow process, the file can live on one side of the workflow, one side of the approval process. For example if the printing house is working on touch ups, the file can stay there, it doesn’t have to go back and forth with the client. And then on the client’s side, they are actually able to see all of this detail in an image without having to get a copy of that image,” said Diamond.

Within Cumulus, the user retains version control of every file. When a document has been updated all the older versions stay available, “if a change request comes in and the designer didn’t get it right, the document is never destroyed, you can always go back and do it over again.”

See an online demo at http://cumulusdemo.aimtec.com.au/NASA-Images/