The Virtual Lightbox is an application that allows you to collect, study, and manipulate images in the William Blake Archive. It incorporates all the features of our previous Java applets, Inote and ImageSizer, while adding a number of new capabilities that make it an ideal workspace for research in the Archive. For example, you can use the Lightbox to zoom and crop images, making it easy to study specific details and motifs. You can arrange items simply by dragging them around the workspace, so it's possible to juxtapose and compare images quickly. Furthermore, because you can send any object in the Archive to the Lightbox, it’s possible to collect items from across genres, media, and time periods. You may add objects directly from Object View Pages or image search results, or you may right-click any object in the Lightbox to call up a menu of other objects in the Archive. Illustrated below is a sample work session collecting images of books and reading from numerous works. Represented here are illuminated books, a pencil sketch, and an engraving; each image has been enlarged from its true size to allow close study of details that are often not apparent on the Object View Page.
A sample work session in the Virtual Lightbox.
Near the bottom of every Object View Page, directly under the inline image, is a button labeled "Send to Lightbox." Clicking this button will activate the Lightbox (if it isn't already open) and load the selected image.
A new Lightbox work session with one object loaded.
Adding new objects from within the Lightbox.
Snap to Grid. The snap to grid feature arranges Lightbox images in an evenly spaced grid so that they're all visible at a glance. Because the
purpose of this feature is to offer quick organization, it ignores the true size of the images and shrinks or enlarges them to fit the grid.
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Zoom in/out. The zoom features allow arbitrary enlargment or shrinking of images between 10% and 1600% of their actual size. This feature can be
used in conjunction with the crop tool to study details of Blake's work. Like most features of the Lightbox, the zoom tools apply only to the currently selected
image. The currently selected image is always surrounded by a light blue border. You can switch focus to another image by clicking on it or by using the
drop-down menu in the upper right (described in more detail below). The zoom factor for the current image always appears in the lightbox status bar at the
bottom of the window. In this example, we have enlarged an object to 470% of its actual size for close study. Because the Lightbox uses high-resolution
versions of images in the Archive, it's often possible to zoom in to small details without pixellation.
Crop. To use the crop feature, hold down the Shift key while clicking and dragging the
mouse over an image. A red square indicating the crop selection will appear. Press the crop button to trim the image. This example shows one way you can
use the crop feature in conjunction with the zoom feature. Here, we're using the lightbox as a selective comparison tool to examine the same pair of figures
from two different copies of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Revert. Returns the selected image to its original state, before any cropping,
zooming, or other changes. This command will also undo the automatic resizing that accompanies the Snap to Grid command.
Trash. Delete the selected image from the lightbox.
True size. Snap the image to its true size. The true size corresponds to the actual size of the physical artifact; if you select an image that is
18 x 14 cm (height x width) and click "True Size," the image will appear at that size on your display. The lightbox automatically detects the pixel density
of your monitor--that is, the number of pixels in a square inch of screen space--and sizes images appropriately.
View image description. Clicking this button will display a description of the current image.
This description, written by the Blake Archive editors, is generally divided into sectors that correspond to quadrants of the image (clockwise from upper left, A, B,
C, and D; sector E is the entire image). You can switch among sectors by using the "View description for region" drop-down menu. Checking "show sector overlays" will
cause the Lightbox to draw a bright green rectangle around the currently selected region of the image.
View image metadata. Image metadata includes information about both the object an image
depicts (for example,
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, copy H, object 1) and the image itself (the JPEG file held by the Blake Archive). In the example below, we're viewing
image production data for an object. This data describes the physical medium from which the image was scanned and gives an outline of the hardware and
sofware environment in which the image was produced.
Load Object View Page. This button loads the object view page for the currently selected image.
Help. The help button loads this documentation.
- Currently loaded images. The menu in the upper right corner of the lightbox allows you to switch focus from one image to another.
- Can I save my workspace?
We plan to offer this capability in a future update to the Lightbox. For now, however, there is no way to save your work between sessions. - Is the source code available?
The source code for the Lightbox will be released under the MIT/X11 open-source license in late 2011. A link to the source code will be available from this documentation. - What are the system requirements for running the Lightbox?
The Lightbox should run on any computer with Java 1.5 or newer and any modern Web browser. Although any display size can accommodate the Lightbox, its comparison and image manipulation features are most useful on a large, high-resolution display. - Is it possible to access the RDF data the Lightbox uses?
Yes. View the source code of any Object View page to see the RDF/XML link for any object in the Blake Archive. - I found a bug in the Lightbox. Whom can I contact?
To report bugs, please write to the Archive staff at williamblakearchive@gmail.com.