OpenLayers 3 - Zoomify - Tiles - Getting started

Question

I am new to OpenLayers and want to switch from Google Maps API.

Now I am trying to figure out how to place a big image into OpenLayers like I can do with the Google Maps API: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/maptype-image

I guess the dependance with OpenLayers is Zoomify, right? http://openlayers.org/en/v3.0.0/examples/zoomify.html

Now I can't find any good How To or Get Started on Zoomify.

• is there a good introduction on OpenLayers and Zoomify which I should know?
• how do I need to slice the image into tiles?
• can I name the tiles like I do for Google Maps?
• I downloaded OL3 but the examples are not working. Do I need to compile something?

Answer 1

• is there a good introduction on OpenLayers and Zoomify which I should know?

The OpenLayers 3 Quickstart and the OpenLayers 3 workshop

• how do I need to slice the image into tiles?

Yes, there are various possibilities using PHP, Python and Ruby. See this blog post for PHP and Python links and Ruby at this GitHub repo.

• can I name the tiles like I do for Google Maps?

No, Google Maps use specific tiles splitting and Zoomify don't use the same.

• I downloaded OL3 but the examples are not working. Do I need to compile something?

No, just go to https://github.com/openlayers/ol3/releases/tag/v3.0.0. At the bottom, click on the v3.0.0.zip download link, unzip it. Put the directory on any webserver and open the examples directory and you will see all demos working.

Answer 2

You can use vips to generate Zoomify tile pyramids. There's a post on the vips blog explaining how to use the tool. For example:

vips dzsave myhugefile.tif output_directory --layout zoomify

will create a tile pyramid in the directory output_directory.

The vips pyramid creator is very fast and can build pyramids of images of any size using only a little memory.