Zoomable UI with Silverlight Deep Zoom Technology

One of the most impressive demos during the MIX keynote yesterday was the Hard Rock Memorabilia Site. Users can browse through thousands of pieces of Rock-n-Roll memorabilia in the Hard Rock collection! The zoomable UI technology is called "Deep Zoom," which allow you to zoom in seamlessly and see incredible detail like fingerprints and photographer's reflections on the pieces in the collection. In the demo, we literally started from looking at thousands of guitar and finally zoom into looking at the details at the end of one string on a guitar. The interaction feels very natural. Now you can experience it on their live site. I bet this will inspires the information visualization designers and researchers out there.

MIX Online has a video interview with the crew who built the experience. Since Silverlight 2 comes with Deep Zoom technology, it quite easy to add the experience to your web application. Mike Harsh, a senior program manager on Silverlight team, has a nice package with demo and presentations on how to do that.

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