This post is part of a loose series about some recent Silverlight, DeepZoom and DeepEarth work I’ve been doing, see:

Silverlight DeepZoom as an Ad Unit (MPU)
Silverlight data visualisation – SIMD Prototype
Silverlight mapping – Using DeepEarth and guided nav

For the others.

In this example we use a combination of RoadRecord search and Guided Navigation along with a DeepZoom collection of images in order to browse a large number of used car adverts in a very visual manner.

It’s quite an interesting approach, inspired by this excellent piece of Silverlight development:

http://www.kbb.com/kbb/PerfectCarFinder/PhotoEdition.aspx

In our case we’ve got a few key problems that these guys didn’t have to deal with. They have 320 or so images in their collection, and as they are models this collection does not change that often. We have around 13,000 adverts live at any one time and the make-up of these adverts changes on a daily basis! I tried some initial experiments with DeepZoom collections of 13,000 subimages and unsurprisingly performance began to deteriorate.

What this means is that I have to reduce the result set in some way before presenting the visual search – this can be done across any axis (Make, Dealership, Year etc etc), in the case of this example I’ve introduced a TreeMap control (got the code from the excellent Descry samples) at the top level in order to select by Make before we enter the visual search.

Here’s video of the prototype in action:

You can see how you make an initial selection of make via a TreeMap and then filter down the DeepZoom collection using Guided Navigation on the left hand side. You can zoom, pan and select items in the main area so the user can get right up to the detail in the images.

When an image is clicked on a small panel appears which provides some additional data and links through to the main site.

This prototype is also live at, be warned YMMV:

http://rrsl.stormideas.com/Search.html

Notes:

  • You must select “BMW” from the TreeMap in order to see results at the next stage
  • You can’t reset at the moment, you have to refresh the page
  • Some times things don’t work, this is a prototype!

It’s really interesting to think how this kind of search could be used, both within the context of the RoadRecord site and beyond. Basically anyone who has large collections of images they would like to improve the access and navigation of could benefit from something like this, people like Getty Images immediately spring to mind!

In terms of improvements to this prototype I’m thinking:

  • Make advert display panel more detailed and allow users to contact the seller from within this application rather than asking them to click through
  • Add metrics to record each new car displayed in the details panel as an advert view, important commercially
  • Add querystring or InitParams which allow the start point of the control to be set – for example to a specific make or dealership.
  • A dealership specific version makes a lot of sense – introduce their details and logo, restrict the search to only within that dealership. This control would then be hosted on the dealerships page within the site and could also be offered up for embedding on other sites.
  • Stick this whole thing in Azure and use Azure Storage instead of the filesystem to serve up the images.

If you think you've got a need for this sort of this, get in touch!