Select image crop offset on an image by image basis

I had an idea, though greatly different from the original feature request, but with a similar end result.

Before I begin my description I would like to extened an offer to help develop this and similar feature requests. I am not an experienced drupal developer but know enough to at least approach the enhancements.

So my feature would be called "Focus." And actually this feature may be better implemented into say something like "Image Attach Field" but would benefit from function features that could be built into image cache. The only reason I suggest this to also be added to "Image Attach Field" is for UI reasons, but the actual feature I believe has a place in image cache. What my feature would do is provide a function or just a parameter for image cache that would allow the user to input a "focus area" for the image. So since imagecache images can be scaled and resized and cropped this would add a priority to a region of the original photo. So say that I have an image and the subject in the image is on the far right, but by image is a landscape. So in my template I have requested that my image be scaled and cropped so that it would fit in a 90 x 90 area. Well my subject may now be completely cropped out of the image. So if there were a way in the imagecache function to say focus = 'mr' this would tell image cache to deliver focus on the image to middle-right. You could base these focus fields off the traditional rule of thirds. So you would have tl, tm, tr, ml, mm, mr, bl, bm, br. Where, tl = top-right, tm = top-middle, tr = top-right, ml = middle-left, mm = dead center, mr = middle-right, bl = bottom-lect, bm = bottom-middle, and finally br = bottom-right.

So now I could render my image with focus to the far right. Now I think I could accomplish this without this being built into imagecache but if it were in image cache doing dynamic focus could be really easy. Because now I could be a ui for say cck image attach field. So you attach your image then you have a nother option and it has like a 3 x 3 table with a way to make a selection. So now I could click on the middle row right column box and have the information stored in the db. So now with image cache I could say ok, this image has focus information contained in it, so now imagecache will follow the rules and apply that focus. Now you could also build your theme function to ignore focus.

Wow, that's the first time I put that into writting so I don't know if that really makes that much sense, but I have a firm grasp on what I am wanting to do if anyone wants to talk about it. And again I would like to help develop this if there is some interest.

Thanks,
-mpare
www.paretech.com

I was just trying to add info to your original feature, I didn't mean to hi-jack your request. If there is a way to fix these two posts lets do that.

Sorry,
-mpare
www.paretech.com

This will never be a feature of imagecache. Imagecache is made to work off of presets. Anything suggesting image-by-image manipulation is not a part of the functionality. Fortunately, another module is being created just for this purpose :)

http://drupal.org/project/eyedrop

rickvug, can you explain your use case? are you thinking that if an image hasn't been manipulated by eyedrop that it should be presented with imagecache... I think if you want that feature you're going to have to create it. Sime and I are working together. We're working on a common backend for file transformations that can be shared by eyedrop and imagecache. Your situation is one we haven't crossed yet... I'm suspecting it will be a custom handler....

.darrel.

rickvug, can you explain your use case? are you thinking that if an image hasn't been manipulated by eyedrop that it should be presented with imagecache... I think if you want that feature you're going to have to create it. Sime and I are working together. We're working on a common backend for file transformations that can be shared by eyedrop and imagecache. Your situation is one we haven't crossed yet... I'm suspecting it will be a custom field formatter.
.darrel.

rickvug said:

That said, do you see any collaboration between the two systems so that they complement eachother?

Absolutely! :-)

rickvug, at the moment we haven't really started integrating two systems. My current version of Eyedrop is more or less self-contained for a current job and I'm now focussing on getting it stable (because it's not yet).

Transformer, Imagecache, Eye-drop want to rent a room together, but there's a long way to go. Contact me my email and I'll give you a logon to look at a demo for Eye-drop so far.