Imaging Support

The MercuryXMS MMS SDK provides a comprehensive set of image processing functions to allow you to quickly and easily format images and for delivery to mobile phones.

[Visual Basic]
Dim objMessage As MMSSimpleMessage
Dim objImage As MMSImageMediaElementSet objImage = objMessage.MediaElements.AddImage("c:\image.bmp")
objImage.TargetFormat = img_JPG
objImage.OverlayImage "http://www.site.com/logo.jpg"

[C#]
MMSSimpleMessage msg = new MMSSimpleMessage();
MMSImageMediaElement image;
image = msg.MediaElements.AddImage("c:\image.bmp");
image.TargetFormat = img_JPG;
image.OverlayImage("/logo.jpg");

Images can be cropped manually or automatically to optimize their delivery to a mobile phone. A number of different resizing algorithms are available to provide smooth resizing. Cropping, flipping, rotating and border functions are also available, as well as brightness and contrast adjustment. When resizing images, you can use the device management classes to automatically resize an image for a specific device.

Images can be overlaid onto other images to provide real time visual watermarking of images as they are composed into an MMS message and delivered to a mobile phone. Image overlays can be manually specified or automatically positioned with a number of smart-positioning alternatives (bottom right, top left, etc). Overlay image transparency can also be specified.

Smooth text can be drawn onto images as they are added to an MMS message. The text can be placed at any X/Y position. Any Windows font and font size can be specified, together with formatting such as bold, italic and underline. Text color can also be specified.

Image formats supported include JPG, TIFF, WBMP, PNG, PCX, TGA, WMF and EMF. (GIF and Animated GIF is also supported, subject to LZW licensing.) Images can be converted to and delivered in these formats as well. You can either manually specify the target format or use the MercuryXMS MMS SDK device management functions to determine the ideal format automatically based on the target handset's capabilities.

The MercuryXMS MMS SDK comes with a complete animated GIF engine . You can create animated GIFs on the fly or you can extract image frame sets from existing animated GIFs. Images can be loaded from a folder, with animated GIF properties - configurable through code - such as frame loop time, repeat, etc. These animated GIFs can be immediately attached and delivered inside an MMS message.

Images can be loaded from disk or loaded from the web with a HTTP accessible URL. Using the Device Manager classes, images can be automatically sized for the target handset based on handset make/model. Consider the following C# example:

[C#]
MMSSimpleMessage message = new MMSSimpleMessage();
MMSImageMediaElement image;
MMSDeviceManager device = new MMSDeviceManager();
image = objMessage.MediaElements.AddImage("//server/image.jpg");
device.FormatImage(image, "Nokia", "3650");
 

User Agent Profile headers can also be used to dynamically transcode content:

[C#]
image = objMessage.MediaElements.AddImage("//server/image.jpg");
device.FormatImageByUAPHeader(image, "Nokia3650/1.0
       SymbianOS/6.1 Series60/0.9 Profile/MIDP-1.0
       Configuration/CLDC-1.0 UP.Link/5.1.1.5a");
image = objMessage.MediaElements.AddImage("//server/image.jpg");
device.FormatImageByUAPHeader(image,
                "http://nds.nokia.com/uaprof/N3650r100.xml");

You can also dynamically create images from scratch, specifying any target format. Start with a blank canvas, specify a background colour, overlay images, draw smooth text - all in real time. The MercuryXMS MMS SDK  also supports forward locking of images with support for Nokia and OMA forward lock, and SonyEricsson content protection.