Retargeting Images

Hi all,

I recently discovered that an image 'retargeting' technique  
originally demonstrated by Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir (http:// 
www.seamcarving.com/) has been implemented as an Adobe Flash-based  
application (http://rsizr.com/), taking the concept out of the  
theoretical and into the semi-practical world where it could  
potentially be used on the web. I'm sure it won't take long for  
enterprising individuals to implement progressive enhancement using  
this, much as tools such as sIFR and swfIR augment typography and  
border effects respectively.

The practical benefits of such a technique are significant for web  
designers used to having to choose between cropping and scaling  
imagery to use within layouts that are expected to be both fluid and  
flexible. Additionally, since most browsers now implement layout zoom  
as well as text zoom modes for accessibility, it would be great to be  
able to retain good looking images within an otherwise scaling layout.

So, a couple of things struck me as possibilities; firstly that  
browsers could implement image retargeting, perhaps as a CSS property  
for image elements. The second is for browsers to implement image  
retargeting as a kind of zoom feature, as a sort of best-of-both- 
worlds compromise between text and full layout zooming, although I  
suspect this goes beyond the scope of discussions on this list.

I'd be interested to hear whether or not people think something like  
this could be feasible as an extension to CSS. I think the benefits  
are clear, but obviously this is a pretty advanced technique compared  
to other things supported (or not...!) in CSS for image manipulation.

~B

Received on Tuesday, 25 March 2008 21:41:15 UTC