You might have seen the television commercial with the suburban family who drove their sport utility vehicle to Tibet (actually some idealized rugged outdoor location) for a picnic and the inept dad locks the keys in the car. Saving the day, is a generation X customer service representative who locates the car from a far off high tech data-center. Satellites locate the car, unlock the door, saving the family picnic!

The space age technology seamlessly working behind the scenes in this scenario is GPS or Global Positioning System. GPS is a satellite locating system developed by the military, which is now available to the general public. GPS units locate a specific point on the earth through the low frequency radio communication with a minimum of 4 satellites of the 24 GPS satellites orbiting the earth. Location is determined by comparing the time for the radio signal to travel from the satellite...

Traditional product photography has accompanied websites, print brochures and related sales collateral for many years now. With the global reach and 24/7 timeliness of the Internet, new demands are placed on the seller. As e-commerce matures with the ever-expanding Internet, many companies are now looking for new ways to display and sell their products. When it is not possible for a buyer to see or hold a product for purchase, the next best thing to being there live is an interactive digital image which is now commonly called a Virtual Reality (VR) Object or Immersive Image.

A VR Object consists of a series of digital images shot in sequence then authored into an interactive digital file. These sequential shots simulate the rotation or functionality of an object and display different views...

When an image is being transferred over a network, the file size is directly related to the elapsed time needed to deliver the image. Depending on the network media, transfer rates vary in speed and availability. The transfer rate is described in either kilobits per second (Kbs = 1,000 bits per second) or megabits per second (Mbs = 1 million bits per second). Remember that there are 8 bits in a byte, 1,024 bytes in a kilobyte and 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte.

Additional factors that slow the transfer rate include latency or delay in the network and slow processor speed of the CPU on either the sending or receiving end.Dial-up: The original method of connecting to the Internet with a modem. Still very popular and used extensively where broadband connectivity is not available. Transfer rates of 9-56 Kbs.

Before you transmit that digital image, are you using the right file format?

Whether you are creating a brochure, a fine-art print on watercolor paper, a web page or a PowerPoint presentation, a variety of image display options are available to you as a digital photographer. Yet before your image is ready for display, there are many technical considerations to understand to make sure that the intended audience views the intended image...