API and technical information

This is only an overview of how things work in ImageAdaptor. For full documentation, go to the downloads section.

ImageAdaptor has been developed specifically with integration into other systems or workflows in mind.

ImageAdaptor will still run its own process. Either as a standalone application or service, or deployed as a web application in a J2EE application server. To call upon its services the integrating system communicates with ImageAdaptor in a couple of different ways.

The first thing an integrating system does when it needs an image adapted is to load that image into ImageAdaptor. It can do this in 3 ways:

• Open a socket connection to ImageAdaptor and send the image.
• Put the image in a watched folder.
• Do an HTTP file upload form post.

Either of these ways returns an image id that will be used in later communication to reference the loaded image.

Next the integrating system will want to let the user adapt the loaded image to a certain use. It will show a web page with an embedded Flash interface that will be linked into the page from the ImageAdaptor host. The integrating system will set the following parameters on the Flash interface:

• The image id obtained when the image was loaded.
• The URL of the ImageAdaptor host.
• The language to display the interface in.
• If the image enhancement option should be shown in the interface.
• If image enhancement should be applied from start.
• The output width and height in mm for output option 1..n.
• The output resolution in dpi for output option 1..n.
• The allowed upsampling ratio for output option 1..n.
• The image file format for output option 1..n.
• The description for output option 1..n.

When the user is working with the image in the interface JavaScript functions will be called at certain events. The integrating system will have implementations of these functions on the web page that loaded the GUI and react appropriately. These are the functions:

• The user is satisfied with the adaption and presses the Save button. This will invoke a call to the function onSave(index). The parameter is the index of the output option that was selected and can be ignored if not of interest.
• The user presses the Cancel button. This will invoke the function onCancel().

When the onSave() function is invoked the adapted image will already be waiting in the ImageAdaptor output folder for the integrating system to pick up via the file system or via HTTP.

For examples showing integrations of ImageAdaptor please run the live demonstrations.