April 24th 2008 | Jens C Brynildsen

3D image wall component

Have you seen the PicLens browser plugin? It takes browsing images to a brand new level and now you can do this easily in Flash as well. It's been a while since we've checked out component vendor Flashloaded. Their 3D wall component for Flash is a seriously cool way to browse and display images.

PicLens is a browser plugin that will open fullscreen to show a 3D wall of images. Clic kan image to view the high rez version of an image. Click outside to zoom back out. While this may seem like a gimmick at first, it's really a great way to browse for images on sites such as Flickr, Google, Photobucket and more. You can quickly navigate huge images sets and since the plugin is using the API, it can also give you higher resolution images than possible on for instance the Flickr.com site. Implementing isn't too hard either as it's based on Media RSS. It took me about 30 minutes to PicLens-enable this architectural firm site and it's a fun "extra feature".

The problem with PicLens is of course that not everyone has the plugin installed. Flashloaded has made an easy to use component that will allow you to create custom galleries in the same style, but with more display options. Using Papervision3D, you can create almost any variation of a wall of images using this component. It plays back smoothly and has a lot of features such as depth of field, glow and reflections. Not only does it look good, but it's also fun to see how a $79.95 Flash component can imitate commercial software. Keep in mind that this won't work on all sites. The UI learning curve is a bit to steep for people like my mom. Click here to check it out.

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