While you're probably referring to archival/dc images where the resources already suggested probably make more sense, for general web images--which can also be big--it's time to start using the <picture> HTML element and the picturefill polyfill for unsupported browsers.

Support tl;dr: The <picture> element is currently under consideration for IE. It will be supported in Firefox 33 and Chrome 38. 

Picture element: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/embedded-content.html#the-picture-element
Picturefill: http://scottjehl.github.io/picturefill/
Currents support landscape for <picture>: http://caniuse.com/#search=picture
IE Platform Status: http://status.modern.ie/pictureelement?term=picture





-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jon Stroop
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 12:10 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] very large image display?

Jonathan,

We use an image server I wrote, Loris, plus OpenSeadragon. Here's an
example:

http://libimages.princeton.edu/osd-demo/?feedme=pudl0123%2F8172070%2F01%2F00000001.jp2

That image is 152500 x 4000 px:

http://libimages.princeton.edu/loris/pudl0123%2F8172070%2F01%2F00000001.jp2/info.json

Loris is on Github: https://github.com/pulibrary/loris
as is OpenSeadragon: https://github.com/openseadragon/openseadragon

More generally, this is one of many problems IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) exists to try to solve. You might want to check out our site, which has links to other tools as well: http://iiif.io/

Hope this helps,
-Jon

On 07/25/2014 11:36 AM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> Does anyone have a good solution to recommend for display of very large images on the web?  I'm thinking of something that supports pan and scan, as well as loading only certain tiles for the current view to avoid loading an entire giant image.
>
> A URL to more info to learn about things would be another way of answering this question, especially if it involves special server-side software.  I'm not sure where to begin. Googling around I can't find any clearly good solutions.
>
> Has anyone done this before and been happy with a solution?
>
> Thanks for any info!
>
> Jonathan