OpenLIME (Open Layered IMage Explorer)

OpenLIME (Open Layered IMage Explorer) is an open-source JavaScript library for the efficient display of scalable high-resolution relightable images.

OpenLime is jointly developed by CRS4 Visual and Data-intensive Computing Group and CNR ISTI - Visual Computing Lab.

OpenLIME natively supports BRDF and RTI datasets, and can be easily extended for other multi-channel raster datasets, such as hyper spectral imaging or other reflectance modeling. Input data can be combined in a multi-layer visualization system using opacity and blending modes, and interactive lenses.

All web image types (jpg, png, gif, etc...) are supported as well as the most common multi-resolution image formats (deepzoom, zoomify, IIIF, google maps), which are suitable for large images.

OpenLIME provides a set of ready-to-use layers that allows developers to quickly publish their datasets on the web or make kiosk applications. Ready-to-use layers ranging from images, to multi-channel data (such as, for example, RTI or BRDF) or the combination of multiple layers or for visualization through lenses.

The OpenLIME library comes with a responsive user iterface that works well with both desktop monitors and multitouch systems. Additionally, it is designed to be highly configurable, so it will be easy for the experienced developer to build their own custom interface.

The library contains a convenient set of examples that can be used both to understand how the library works and as a starting point for programming with OpenLIME itself.

Installing npm

Ubuntu

sudo apt install npm

Ubuntu 18.04

You might have some problem using the old npm version shipped with Ubuntu18.04, and even upgrading it. This worked for me:

sudo npm install -g npm@latest-6

Windows

To obtain npm for Windows, you need to download the Windows version of node.js from https://nodejs.org/en/download/ . You can download either the Windows Installer (.msi) or the Windows Binary (.zip). If you download and expand the Windows Binary zip file, you will afterwards need to set your PATH variable to include the directory that contains the npm executable (this directory is the subdirectory node_modules\npm\bin).

Setting up npm (all platforms)

The following step should be performed in the openlime directory that was cloned from this repository.

Before using npm, you need to install the required packages locally. This only needs to be done once. The following command tells npm to download all the webpack packages (and their dependencies) listed in the package.json file. These will be put in the ./node_modules directory.

npm install

The downloaded packages include rollup, documentation, and nodemon, which will be used below.

Using npm (all platforms)

These steps should be performed in the openlime directory that was cloned from this repository.

Build the code

The following command reads the javascript code in ./src, and puts the transpiled webpack code in ./dist/main.js.

npm run build

The webpack code is used, for example, by the ./dist/index.html web page.

Run the node.js server

If you wish, you can run the node.js development server to serve your web pages. This server will use ./dist as the home directory. The server is run in "hot" mode, which means that whenever you change a file in the ./src directory, the webpack code will automatically be rebuilt, and your web browser will automatically refresh, to reflect your latest changes.

npm run start

Then access the demo app at http://localhost:8080 (which by default is ./dist/index.html).

If you prefer to serve from a different port, say 8088, you can call

npm run start -- --port 8088

Create a rollup file to use with other servers

You do not need to use node.js as the server. Instead, you can use the <script> approach, embedding a rollup file, either ./build/openlime.min.js or ./build/openlime.js, in your web page.
The files ./dist/ui_custom.html and ./dist/ui_svg.html are examples of this approach.
Such files will display correctly when served from any web server. To create the rollup files, call rollup:

npm run rollup

Keep the rollup files up to date

If you keep a nodemon (node monitor) script running, it will automatically update the rollup files ./build/openlime.min.js and ./build/openlime.js whenever anything changes in the ./src directory. Note that, unlike with the node.js server, the browser will not refresh automatically; you will have to do that yourself once the rollup files have been updated.

npm run nodemon

Create documentation

The documentation is created from structured comments in the source code (in ./src). Once created, it is accessible from ./docs/index.html

npm run doc

Customization

skin.css

skin.svg

Run

svgo -p 1 skin.svg -o skin.min.svg

to minimize svg.

Documentation.js supports markdown syntax and JSDoc syntax.

JSON example of the configuration:

{
	camera: { 
	},
	canvas: {
		rasters: [
			{
				id:
				name:
				width: //optional
				height: //optional
				url: 
				layout: <image|google|deepzoom|zoomify|iip|iiif> //optional if can be determined from the url.
				

			}
		]
	},
	overlay: {
	}
}