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The Image Optimizer ActiveX Control is designed to allow you to add class leading JPEG, GIF and PNG image compression and image enhancement to your custom applications with the minimum of effort. It is compatible with any language that supports ActiveX; including Visual Basic, Visual C++, Delphi and C++ Builder. Savings of up to 50% or more in file size are possible, which can considerably decrease web page download times - increasing page views and revenue generation, save on disk space and reduce bandwidth charges.
The control is particularly suited to the preparation of graphics for e-commerce sites. For example the control can be used to make highly efficient thumbnails using the PNG format while larger images can use MagiCompressed JPEGs.
If you are new to web graphics we recommend you download xat.com Image Optimizer (GUI version) and familiarize yourself with JPEG, GIF and PNG compression and see the benefits of MagiCompression.
Using the OCX is straight forward. For example to reduce the quality of a JPEG image by 10 and MagiCompress the image the following Visual BASIC code could be used:
XAT.Load("MyPic.jpg")
XAT.DstFileType=XAT.SrcFileType
XAT.DstJpegColorType=XAT.SrcJpegColorType
XAT.DstJpegQuality=XAT.SrcJpegQuality-10
XAT.DstJpegProgressive=XAT.SrcJpegProgressive
XAT.JpegMagiCompression=50
XAT.Save("MyNewPic.jpg")
The OCX is available in two editions:
| Features | |
| OCX Enhanced | Standard JPEG compression and 256 color reduction, crop, resize and rotate. Image enhancement including automatic color, levels adjustment and powerful text and image captioning including opacity an full alpha channel support. |
| OCX Full | Adds JPEG MagiCompression, full variable color reduction and noise reduction. |
All editions use the same programming interface. The downloadable demo has all the features of the full edition except that it adds a very small xat.com to the image. Features:
Speed up web pages, reduce server load, cut bandwidth costs and save disk space JPEG, GIF and PNG compression Text and image captioning Color correction and levels adjustment MagiCompression of JPEGs Image resizing, crop and rotate PictureBox interface Advanced color reduction and dithering Easy to use and interface with Visual Basic, Delphi and C++BuilderExamples:
The example below shows how Image Optimizer OCX Full's advanced JPEG compression can give you smaller file sizes and better quality images. The "pink" image shows how the MagiCompress algorithm has automatically selected regions to compress at different quality levels. The pinker a region the more it is compressed.
Standard JPEG |
With Image |
Regional compression |
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JPEG artifacts |
Reduced artifacts |
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Image Optimizer OCX enhanced enables you to enhance and optimize images very quickly and easily. Automatic functions are provided to suggest values for correcting colors and levels. Here are some examples of the enhancements that can be achieved:
Before |
After |
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Enhance / Levels |
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Color correction |
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Clean / De-Noise |
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Image Optimizer OCX Enhanced/Full 2.00 and above includes the ability to place another picture on the images and to add text to the image e.g:
In the above image, an xat.com logo has been placed over most of the image as a very transparent watermark and the file name has been added to the top right hand corner. Note that in this case an alpha channel is used to make parts of the logo fully transparent.
The OCX includes a sample in Visual BASIC that shows how easy it is to use the xat.com OCX in your application. A typical application is the uploading of images of houses and cars for sale to a central data base. The sample can be easily adapted to this use. The image is captured from a digital camera, scaled, a logo and caption are added, the image is compressed and uploaded.
A screen shot of the application is shown below:
The list below is a summary of the methods and properties for the Image Optimizer Control. More details are available in the help file that comes with the OCX.
- Full Edition only
| Method | ||||||||
| Load | Load an image from disk | |||||||
| Compress | Compress image | |||||||
| Save | Compress and save an image to disk | |||||||
| ColorCalc | Automatically calculate color correction | |||||||
| LevelsCalc | Automatically calculate levels correction | |||||||
| Property | Read | Assign | Read Src | Assign Src | Read Dst | Assign Dst | ||
| FileType | JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF or BMP | o | o | o | ||||
| ImageWidth | Width of Image in pixels | o | o | o | ||||
| ImageHeight | Height of Image in pixels | o | o | o | ||||
| FileSize | Size of image file in bytes | o | o | |||||
| JpegColorType | Standard, Extra color or Grayscale | o | o | o | ||||
| JpegQuality | 1-100 1=low qual 100=high qual | o | o | o | ||||
| JpegMagiCompression | 0-100 0=none 100=high compression | o | o |  |
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| JpegProgressive | True for Progressive JPEG | o | o | o | ||||
| PngNoOfColors | No of Colors in GIF or PNG image | o | o | o | |
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| PngDithering | 0-100 0=none 100=max | o | o | |||||
| PngInterlaced | True for Interlaced GIF/PNG | o | o | o | ||||
| Picture | Picture Interface | o | o | |||||
| NoiseReduction | Noise reduction (0-100 and advanced) | o | o | |
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| Resize | True to resize the image | o | o | |||||
| ResizeSharpness | Sharpness to use while resizing | o | o | |||||
| Crop | True to crop the image | o | o | |||||
| CropLeftMargin | Crop offset on left of image in pixels | o | o | |||||
| CropTopMargin | Crop offset at top of image in pixels | o | o | |||||
| CropWidth | Width of crop in pixels | o | o | |||||
| CropHeight | Height of crop in pixels | o | o | |||||
| Rotate | Rotate the image: 0, 90, 180 or 270 | o | o | |||||
| Flip | Flip the image horizontally or vertically | o | o | |||||
| TextCaption | Add text to the image | o | o | |||||
| ImageCaption | Add an image (e.g. logo) to the image | o | o | |||||
| ColCyanToRed | Adjust color cyan to red (-100 to +100) | o | o | |||||
| ColMagentaToGreen | Adjust color magenta to green (-100 to +100) | o | o | |||||
| ColYellowToBlue | Adjust color yellow to blue (-100 to +100) | o | o | |||||
| ColSaturation | Color saturation (-100 to +100) | o | o | |||||
| Brightness | Brightness (-100 to +100) | o | o | |||||
| Contrast | Contrast (-100 to +100) | o | o | |||||
| Gamma | Gamma (0.2 - 5.0) | o | o | |||||
| Levels | True to adjust levels of the image | o | o | |||||
| LevelsLow | The low levels value (0-255) | o | o | |||||
| LevelsMid | The middle levels value (0-255) | o | o | |||||
| LevelsHigh | The high levels value (0-255) | o | o | |||||
| Equalization | Equalization (0-100) | o | o | |||||
| Sharpen | Sharpen (0-100 and advanced) | o | o | |||||
| Blur | Blur (0-100 and advanced) | o | o | |||||
Download - demo of Image Optimizer OCX
For all questions, comments, and Technical Support issues please contact us xat.com at info@xat.com
Purchase Image Optimizer OCX Standard with Credit Card or Check. To purchase the full edition please contact us.
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