IIIF…Say What!!?!?!?
A short explanation for people who aren’t interested in words like metadata
A Definition
IIIF is a means of presenting images and related information on the web. It enables the use of a whole range of tools to explore sets of images. These sets of images can be drawn from multiple organisations.
I find it difficult to explain IIIF without technobabble. Hopefully the definition above will demystify IIIF at least a little.
Example Benefits
🕵️♀️ — you are a researcher — you can explore a book in an online viewer where the pages of the book are actually scattered around the world in various locations.
👩🏫 — you are an educator — you can load an artwork in a deep-zoom online viewer and add annotations to the image. You can then walk through this example with your class on the projector. They can even follow along on their phones.
Create your own with our user-friendly online editor.
👨💻 — you are a head of technology — you can use one set of images to drive every web-enabled experience you have in your institution. Put the effort in to get IIIF embedded in your institution then pat yourself on the back.
🤓 — you are a web developer — you can concentrate on building awesome things without having to build yet another image resizing script. You don’t have to worry about thumbnail vs hero image. Just request the image at the size and crop you need.
🧘♂️ — you are a yoga teacher — you can project incredible abstract art onto your studio wall and turn your yoga class into an immersive experience. (Click the eye icon to the right of the artwork).
🧒/🧔 — you are a kid /36 year old — you can do puzzle after puzzle using images from some our most treasured institutions. (I like puzzles).
🍿 — you are a Bladerunner fan — you can liven up your solo ‘vodka’ drinking by pretending you are Deckard.
The super-cool part of this whole thing is that all the people above can partake in their preferred activities using the same images and associated information without any special intervention.
You can jump from being a researcher, to an educator to a kid using the same set of source images. (Obviously we do not recommend jumping from kid to ‘vodka’-drinking bladerunner).
