On-the-fly Image Generation

December 11, 2009 · by Paul Eggerling-Boeck

While working at my current client, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a dynamic image generation tool from Adobe called Scene7. We had a need to put togther different elements of an image dynamically based on user input and render a final image to the user’s browser. I can’t believe how well and how fast the Scene7 software accomplishes this task. Granted, I have no prior experience with image generation software so I have no baseline with which to compare, but it seems really fast and easy to me. In order to make it all work, all the pieces used to generate the final image are uploaded to the Scene7 server ahead of time and processed (this is where the magic must happen). This processing takes a very long time, but it’s only done once, and it’s done ahead of time so the end user feels none of the pain. To have the Scene7 software generate the final image, we simply construct a URL with a number of parameters telling the system which pieces to pull together and how to put them together. The result is a final image file which is generated in a fraction of a second. As a bonus, it just works and when we’ve had some confusion about how it works, Adobe techincal support has been Johhny-on-the-spot with help. Is it open source? No. Is it expensive? Most likely yes. But it just might be worth the expense if you need the services it offers because it works damn well.

P.S. Just in case the FTC comes asking, I was in no way compensated for this article.

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