Improved: Quick Zoom Feature for the Image Gallery Thumbnails
An update has been made to the quick thumbnail zoom algorithm. When you hover your mouse over the images in the gallery a part of the underlying image is zoomed and shown in place of the original thumbnail. The part of the image with the best focus is selected.
In the new version of the algorithm the selection is made dependent not just on the greatest detail regions of the image but also on highest color contrast. Most importantly, the selection contains most probably a whole object (if there is one in the image that can be cropped at this zoom).
The most noticeable improvements can be seen on high quality pictures. The top voted pictures from the online image gallery are good examples of this. Because low quality images taken with cell-phones or having poor focus or other defects don’t usually have so many localized details, the quick zoom selection will not be representative in this case.
What the above implies is a method to find good quality images. Usually these have great looking thumbnails but also a well chosen quick zoom.
The quick zoom is also available in the related images section on the right of each tagged image.
Browse newest images in the image gallery to see how it works.
I think that makes the website look nice with this feature. Its also great because it is not blurry.
Comment by black metal picture frames — September 5, 2008 @ 7:27 am