Developing a Web Tool for Searching and Viewing Collections of High-Quality Cultural Images

Abstract

Searching for information and viewing visual representations of products in e-organisations is a common activity of the e-visitors to these organisations. For example, in e-museums, users are shown images or other visual information of the existing objects. The aim of this paper is to present a tool which supports the effective searching for images in e-organisations. The tool also supports the effective presentation of high-quality images with zooming facilities. The tool is used in searching for and viewing high-resolution cultural images in order to test its usefulness. Design/methodology/approach – Initially, the problems of finding and effectively viewing high-quality images in e-organisations are discussed. Then, a review of the literature on zoomable browsers, which discuss effective ways of depicting large quantities of visual data on small screens or in a fast mode, through the web, is presented. Concept-based image retrieval and the image-browsing modules of the proposed tool are described. Finally, the system is evaluated with the aid of real users in viewing high-quality cultural images downloaded from the web. The opinions of the users are presented, along with other statistics, and future research plans are discussed. Findings – The emphasis of the evaluation was on the zoomable image viewer of the presented web tool. The evaluation showed that the zooming viewer is easy to use and reduces significantly the data that need to be downloaded for viewing high-quality images. Originality/value – The integrated searching and viewing application could be used in e-organisations for searching for and viewing detailed images of their products and exhibits. Further, the zoomable image browser could be used for viewing libraries of high-quality image collections in a time- and network-efficient mode.