Another Funky Side Project

Here at Seadragon we are all about pimping cool zooming technology and developments.  From time to time however, we like to release fun little one-offs into the wild and see what response we get.  In the same spirit as our first “Funky Side Project”, Infinite Canvas, I submit for your consideration Snapdragon.

Initially showing a handful of the most recent, popular Flickr tags, we take the opportunity to pull random words from wordie.org for you to explore as well.  Click on words to see photos tagged as such and click on photos to see their tags.  You can also hit the auto play button and let serendipity take you where it may.

Snapdragon is written entirely in JavaScript (similar to Infinite Canvas and Seadragon Ajax), moving and resizing HTML images and text to give the impression of zooming.

-Kevin Hanes

An Infinite Canvas by Any Other Name

Back when Ian created Infinite Canvas, he did so because the technology that he wanted to use simply didn’t exist.  It was a combination of not being able to find the right tool to create an infinite-canvas-style comic and the desire to apply Seadragon’s philosophy to an interesting, albeit niche, space.

Artist Donato Sansone came across the same problem when he tried to create an infinite canvasy, flip-animation… thing.  His response was to create a flip-book of truly epic (or room-sized) proportions and video himself making the magic happen.  I’ve been told that this video contains some disturbing artwork, but the first time I watched it, I hardly noticed over the sound of how awesome it was.

 

-Kevin Hanes

Fast Flip

Google Labs has come out with an interesting way to read through some of your daily news, Google Fast Flip.  Essentially placing news pages on an infinte, scrolling,  canvas that allows you to “flip” through articles in a series or one-up view.  No zooming to be had here,  sadly, though it seems to be begging for it; add some constrained or free zoom to this action and you can color me excited!

Fast Flip has received the usual Google design once-over, ensuring that content is your focus, not layout or interaction.  You can use the arrow keys to navigate, but only once you are in the one-up view.   It also feels like I should be able to click and drag to move through the feed, but that seems to be missing, too. Other than these details, it’s pretty slick, quick and easy to use.  Now if only I could add my own feeds to it and really get crankin’.

-Kevin Hanes

Infinite Canvas back in business

As previously mentioned, we had to relocate Infinite Canvas to a new server. Fortunately the folks at JGate have been very helpful in getting us set up, and the folks at AppJet have kindly redirected the original domain to point at the new server, so all the old links work and everything should function the way it did before. I’ve turned editing back on and everything looks good, so it’s back to our previously-scheduled explorations in visual expression!

Infinite Canvas is relocating

My Infinite Canvas web app has been running on AppJet, which has been delightful, but they’ve just announced that they are discontinuing hosting on July 1st. I’m looking into where to move it to and how to make it as smooth a transition as possible. I’ll update here once it’s been sorted out.

UPDATE: Looks like I’ve successfully moved it to JGate, which has taken up the AppJet torch. Take a look and see what you think; it should be identical. Once I’m happy with the transfer I’ll turn editing features back on again.

UPDATE 2: The move is complete, and the folks at AppJet have been nice enough to redirect the original URL, so both http://infinitecanvas.jgate.de and http://infinitecanvas.appjet.net now work. I’ve turned editing back on and everything looks good! Let me know if you have any problems.

Infinite Canvas

I’ve been a fan of Scott McCloud since Understanding Comics. In his follow-up, Reinventing Comics, he proposes that the web could finally break comics out of their paper cage, allowing them to grow in whatever direction best fits them. He called this notion the infinite canvas, and even went so far as to discuss some of the technological ramifications that underlie Seadragon (and other similar zooming systems) today.

So, for the most recent Live Labs Out of the Box Week, I built a comic creator/viewer and called it Infinite Canvas. It’s all JavaScript (not Seadragon Ajax, but similar), even on the server side, where I’m using AppJet. Some early adopters have already created comics in it, so come check it out, and tell your comic friends about it!

More generally, it’s also an exploration into how we create and consume content in a zooming world. I look forward to continuing to explore these ideas in this and other domains.