Displaying a jpeg from a URL in labview - http

I need to make a labview VI that will display a jpeg image from a URL. (the url is generated based on some data)
I've found a way to display an image from the hard drive (Read JPEG File), so what I probably need is just a way to download it to a temporary file.
All I've found are some low level TCP client VI's. Is there an easier way? If there isn't I can just open a browser window, but I'd rather not.

Have a look at this LAVA post, titled Downloading an image from a Web server using Datasocket.
The only disadvantage is that it is not cross-platform, it will only work on Windows, on Linux I have seen this code killing LabVIEW.
The OpenG Internet Connectivity toolkit has code that is cross-platform.
Ton

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How do I add support for a proprietary image format in Windows Photo Viewer / Picasa Viewer

I am working on developing a lossless compression algorithm using MATLAB.
I would like to see some of my compressed images on windows photo viewer. Could anyone direct me on how to go about doing this? Where may I find specifications to create a codec that would work with windows photo viewer?
I am guessing that I could create a codec as a .ddl file and place it in some windows directory and Photo Viewer could decode my file format. I have seen some softwares from Nikon imaging that, once installed, allowed photo viewer to display the .NEF (Nikon's RAW) files.
I am also willing to consider developing the codec for picasa.
I think I discovered what I was looking for - It is called Windows Imaging Component.
The MSDN docs appear to be here and an example of an implemented coded is webP.

What is the best tool to make a CD-ROM Demo Application?

I have to make an application that will do the following:
Open a video file embedded in the application
Open some pdf files, preferably embedded in the application, but if it will have to open externally, it's no problem.
Work in fullscreen on the user computer, with a minimum resolution of 1024x768. I'm thinking about a resolution of 1024x768, centered on a black background.
I was thinking of using Flash, but I don't have much experience, so if there is another easier IDE that creates a Flash application, I would prefer that.
So, if anyone knows any Flash component to do this, I'll be very thankful.
Creating a Flash CDROM takes a little bit of care, but from my experience it's well worth it. From your requirements, the Flash IDE is well up to the task. The common requirements are as follows:
Windows / Mac platform
Flash Projector file
Autorun file (For the Windows platform)
Net access or all local
If your client is happy with creating the CDROM just for Windows, there will be very few dramas - but if they want to create a Mac-friendly version, you can do that too and I will explain afterwards.
Your Flash should preferably be an .exe projector file - the reason for this is so that the Windows user can open your app without downloading a Flash player (If the client wants a CDROM, they probably have limited net access, so this is a good thing!)
Within Flash, you can perform all your standard fs commands including full-screen.
You will likely need an Autorun file so that the user sees your application as soon as you put in the CDROM - simply create a file named 'autorun.inf' in notepad and enter the following:
[autorun]
open=yourProjector.exe
Where 'yourProjector.exe' is the name and path of your projector file.
It sounds like you're going to embed your videos and content in the CDROM - this is usually the ideal case, since your client won't receive annoying security messages, but this can also be a bad thing if you want to correct your content later (spotting errors after a thousand CDROMS have been distributed can be a PAIN).
You can serve some of your content online to avoid this, but it would give your user some ugly messages, so as long as you triple-check your content and embed everything, it would be the best scenario.
Now for a Mac, Apple has done away with autorun features years ago - there is a way to turn it on through Quicktime, but this is off by default for almost all Mac users, and turning it on is not recommended because it makes the Mac vulnerable to the 'Hong Kong Virus', one of the few Mac viruses around.
You can make your CDROM mac-friendly by creating a Mac Projector and adding instructions for how to use it by changing the background image of the CDROM window. I haven't had to do it before, but I hear that it's not too difficult.
You can use the Flash Projector. Here is a tutorial to get you started. Now, you won't be able to embed the PDF files but you can open them easily enough using fscommand("exec","foo.pdf")
You can create an Adobe AIR Application; however it won't run off the CD ROM; it'll need to be installed locally.
If creating a projector from Flash Pro doesn't work; look at a tool like Janus or Zinc

Phonon on Windows

Right now I have Phonon working on windows with a DS backend. However, it will not play certain mp3 files and although it appears to be playing m4a files (the song progress bar keeps moving) no sound comes out. The application is built using PyQt4 on Windows and is aimed at Windows users.
I know that this is not the fault of my program as when I replaced a file with one that did not play normally with one that did, the song played perfectly. I have downloaded phonon vlc, and tried to build it, but I cannot get CMake to create a makefile. Whenever I try, it tells me that the dev-cpp gcc is not able to make a simple test file.
I also tried downloading clementine and amorak to see if I could get that to work, but I have had the same problems there as well. Has anyone run into this sort of problem before?
I've run into the same problem recently. It seems to be that Phonon has a bit of a hissy fit about ID3 tags, particularly compressed ones. I've taken to creating a temporary copy of every mp3 that I open and using mutagen to delete the tags from that copy. I then open the de-tagged temporary file using PyQt/Phonon, and everything works as I expect. BTW, mutagen is awesome.
Phonon does have a bit of a habit of failing reasonably silently. This is what I do: check if your MediaObject is in a Phonon.ErrorState; if so check its errorString(), usually some incomprehensible message. Google this message and try to work from there.
Edit: Hmm, interesting. It's not Phonon having the problem, it's the DirectShow backend not being able to play the file with the compressed ID3 headers. While the "fix" I outline above does work, I found I was still having problems playing other types of files, e.g. .m4a, despite having the right codecs installed.
The solution was to install the K-Lite Codec Pack, and use the Win7DSFilterTweaker tool that comes with it to change the default decoder for the various codec types from "Microsoft" to "ffdshow". You might also need to run the ffdshow audio decoder configuration tool and tick the box marked Show dialog when an unknown application tries to load ffshow in the DirectShow control tab.

Is it possible with AIR to play a video while it is downloaded

The idea is download a video in parts (from different servers) but starting to play before video file is complete.
The issue is that VideoDisplay component doesn't read the video file if it is opened for writing and vice-versa: writing is impossible if VideoDisplay plays the video...
I know I may sound totally off-topic, but you should make sure you've properly considered video streaming thru Flash Media Server, Wowza or Red5 before you put that much effort in downloading a file in chunks. Just a thought..
What about having multiple parts of the video, so playing can begin as soon as first part gets downloaded. So the parts have to be concatenated somehow at client side.
(Additionally, if one's connection is insufficient, showing a loading symbol is fine.)
Open the file in Shared mode, if that is possible with Air. Mainstream OS's (Windows, Linux, MacOS) have this functionality built in.
Use two threads:
In thread 1 (the downloader thread) open the file in Shared mode to allow reading from other threads and processes.
In thread 2 (the player thread) open the file in Shared mode to allow reading and writing from other threads and processes.
Be sure to buffer the beginning of the file so your player will always have something to play and won't choke while playing an incomplete file.

How to compress JPEG images with ASP on Windows CE

The ASP page gets data uses that to draw a graph, I then need to save the image created to JPEG to be displayed on the browser and also used in PDF and other format. What is the best way to compress the image? I am currently porting a JPEG compression library to ASP but I think it will be too slow on this ARM device running Windows CE 6.0.
So, the ASP page, running in Windows CE webservers, gets data, renders it into a bitmap image than then needs to be delivered to the browser accessing that ASP page. The same image is also used in PDF and one other proprietary format that can contain JPEG streams.
Edit:
What I am looking for is to way to create an array representing a bitmap and then compressing it to JPEG with ASP in Windows CE's IIS which has quite limited ASP implementation.
Take a look at the Imaging APIs (start your traversal at the IImagingFactory interface). If your device has a JPG compression codec installed (remember that CE is modular, so it may or may not be present) you can use it to create a stream (or file) from the image. From there you can do with it what you wish.
I'm confused...
The images from ASP would be compressed on the server side--not client side.
I'm sure your web server is not running on Windows CE, so I don't think your concern is warranted.
EDIT: Seems as though you can run a web server on Windows CE: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/products/windowsce/default.mspx. I'll keep my thoughts to myself from now on. :-x

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