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Balancing Image Speed and Quality with imgix

Users expect a website to load fast. An average web page loads in about 2.5 seconds. The longer the user has to wait, the higher the user bounce rate. There are a lot of factors that go into site speed, but images account for about 75% of the page weight on an application or website. Google’s Core Web Vitals uses several metrics to rank sites. Visual site speed or largest contentful paint affects ROI as slower sites have fewer repeat users and fewer sales.

Without properly sized images, both site speed and image quality are affected. Accordingly, we use several methods to deliver properly sized images. Our primary solution is imgix because it is easy to implement and saves managers and clients time and effort. 

Imgix Key Features

Imgix provides a lot of features — some we consistently use on projects, and others we use in very specific situations. 

Responsive Images

Setting up responsive images can be complex. As the variety of devices and their screen resolutions continue to expand, managing all the different image requirements is increasingly challenging.

Consider this scenario: a website’s images look crisp and clear on a high-resolution monitor. When that same page is viewed on a mobile device, the images are so large the page takes forever to load. A solution could be to upload a smaller image for mobile, right? It's not quite that simple. We need eight or more different sizes of the same image to account for different screen sizes and retina screens. Keeping track of all the image sizes and saving each size gets complex and would be nearly impossible to do manually on a site that has hundreds or thousands of images. 

One of our clients, National Park Foundation (NPF), wanted to clarify its message to better target major donors. Their gorgeous, large scenic images are essential to their website strategy.  NPF needed the images throughout their site to be crisp and clear at all screen sizes. Using imgix, NPF content managers can load high-resolution images to the CMS and not worry about the site's speed or performance. They rely on imgix to deliver the correctly resized image for any user's screen.

Imgix does this with their Device Pixel Ratio and Client Hints which automatically sets the pixel density for the image based on the user's device. Those API parameters can be easily set in the URLs for the image’s `srcset`. This allows developers to set an image width for an image `srcset` and then imgix delivers the right pixel ratio image to the user. We use `srcset` with imgix on other client sites like Bezos Earth Fund and Human Rights Campaign as well.

Resize and Cropping

Imgix allows you to crop images in addition to setting an image’s focal point. So, only one image needs to be uploaded and it can be used at multiple sizes and croppings throughout the site. Let's say we upload a large landscape image, but on some pages we only need to use a portion of the image cropped as a square. Imgix will crop the image and deliver the smaller versions on the pages we need while persisting the larger versions on other pages.

At Viget we use resizing and cropping on our own website, including our articles, to crop the staff photo to a smaller size at the top of the articles. This makes it possible for us to upload the staff photo once and the article image gets created automatically. 

Color Palette 

Another feature that we've used on client sites is the Color Palette API which allows you as many colors as you want from an image. For example, the Shedd Aquarium website that we built uses this feature by pulling a vibrant color from the image and setting it as the background color for the page hero. Aside from taking the manual work out of closely aligning photography with a page’s design, there’s an additional benefit: if you are on a slow connection, you will see a dynamic colored banner at the top before the image loads.

Image Upscaling

Another valuable feature is the ability to upscale images. Even if you upload an image that is low resolution, it can still be used at a higher resolution. This is especially useful for e-commerce sites or applications where users are uploading their images.  The upscale feature uses Generative AI to take a pixelated image and create a higher-resolution image. The final image will not be perfect, but it looks more professional. See the upscale demo on imgix.

Non-upscaled image
Upscaled image using Imgix

PDF Preview Images

There is also a PDF page to image option in imgix. The API enables the generation of a page-specific image preview from the PDF, which can serve as both a thumbnail and a full-size preview. When we built AHIP.org, they had a resources section for their members containing quite a few PDFs. To help with clarity and findability, we used imgix to show previews of the PDF documents to non-members. This feature allows AHIP to upload resource PDFs without having to also upload any thumbnail images. 

Face Detection

Another nice feature is a face detection parameter that you can pass to the API. This allows you to upload a photo and no matter the cropping or size it will keep the face as the focal point of the image. We used this feature on NEA for their team member page. It's great for user profile images that are used in different contexts throughout the site. 

Video Streaming

Videos have become a key design element on websites. However, determining which service to use for embedding those videos is an ongoing topic of discussion. Video platforms enable you to integrate the video onto the page, yet they introduce scripts that may impede page loading speed. Imgix offers a video embed service that allows content managers to keep all the images and videos in one place. The videos are automatically encoded to Adaptive Bitrate Streaming to get the best compression and video quality. So, videos load fast and look great on mobile and desktop. 

Imgix Video API with Adaptive Bitrate Streaming

Performance 

A lot of CMSs have image transformations built in. An image transformation encompasses everything for that image including responsive sizes, cropping, resizing, and face detection from the original. This is great for small sets of images, but transformations quickly get out of hand the more images there are on a site. For example, the homepage of the National Park Foundation has a minimum of 96 image transformations. 

Processing all of those image transformations uses a lot of server resources. Imgix saves the images and delivers them through their CDN. The imgix image CDN has an average of 0.15 milliseconds return on requests which enables images to load as quickly as possible. The CDN also caches the images on CDN edge nodes making them immediately available for future requests. 

Flexibility

Imgix is flexible enough to work with almost any site structure; including WordPress, Craft CMS, Shopify, React, Ruby on Rails, Python, and more (see the full list). So, whether a site is a WordPress site or a Rails application, imgix fits right into the ecosystem. And, even better: you don’t have to rebuild your web app or website to gain the benefits of image performance, which can save you a lot of time and money.

Setting up imgix on an existing website is easy. Imgix can connect to existing asset storage sources like AWS, Azure, or a web folder on the same domain. Once the image source is set up, a developer can start passing parameters to the API

Cost

Imgix is free for 1,000 images which makes it easy to integrate and grow with your site. Pricing goes to $750/yr for 5,000 images and $3,000/yr for 25,000 images. In their pricing structure, “images” are categorized as origin images, so the count only includes original images and not transformed ones. So, you could have hundreds of images and thousands of image transformations all being delivered through a CDN for free.

Conclusion

Ensuring fast site speed isn't just important. It is vital. It's the cornerstone of a successful online presence, directly influencing search engine rankings, user satisfaction, and ultimately, your return on investment. Properly sized and optimized images are key to ensuring your site loads quickly and displays correctly for users across various devices.

We have found that imgix enables our team to efficiently create projects with diverse image options, saving managers and developers valuable time. Our clients benefit from reduced server space and an increased site speed. Imgix’s API is comprehensive, so you can use one tool for all features and options around site images — from cropping and resizing to face detection and automated color palettes, to video and beyond. Having used imgix for the past five years to support the wide-ranging needs of our clients, we feel confident recommending it and using it again and again. 

Users expect a website to load fast, and imgix is a reliable way to make sure that happens. 




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Integrating Image-To-Text And Text-To-Speech Models (Part 1)

Joas Pambou built an app that integrates vision language models (VLMs) and text-to-speech (TTS) AI technologies to describe images audibly with speech. This audio description tool can be a big help for people with sight challenges to understand what’s in an image. But how this does it even work? Joas explains how these AI systems work and their potential uses, including how he built the app and ways to further improve it.




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Integrating Image-To-Text And Text-To-Speech Models (Part 2)

In the second part of this series, Joas Pambou aims to build a more advanced version of the previous application that performs conversational analyses on images or videos, much like a chatbot assistant. This means you can ask and learn more about your input content.




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7 Best AI Image Upscalers to Boost Quality and Resolution

Discover top AI image upscalers to boost resolution and clarity without quality loss—perfect for designers, marketers, and content creators.




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How to Change Featured Image Sizes in WordPress

Featured images are used within WordPress in a number of different ways, depending on the theme you are using. Most themes use featured images as a thumbnail preview of one of the images in a post or page that is typically displayed on the homepage and archive pages. This functionality was introduced with WordPress 2.9 […]




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Google Images Licensable Badge: Everything Photographers Need to Know

Image piracy is a real issue that affects all photographers who publish their work online. Having to deal with issues such as image theft is a source of frustration for many. Thankfully, Google Images licensable badge ushers in new opportunities for photographers to capture referrals and sales directly from Google Images searchers. For years, the […]




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Galaxy Interactions and Cosmic Illusions: Webb's Stunning New Images

How did stars form 7 billion years ago, or approximately halfway between the Big Bang and now? This is what a recent study published in the Monthly Notices



  • Space & Astronomy

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A New Look at Galaxy Boundaries: Discoveries from Deep Imaging of Cosmic Gas

What are the exact sizes of galaxies, and are they bigger than they appear in deep space images? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy



  • Space & Astronomy

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Galaxy Interactions and Cosmic Illusions: Webb's Stunning New Images

How did stars form 7 billion years ago, or approximately halfway between the Big Bang and now? This is what a recent study published in the Monthly Notices



  • Earth & The Environment

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A New Look at Galaxy Boundaries: Discoveries from Deep Imaging of Cosmic Gas

What are the exact sizes of galaxies, and are they bigger than they appear in deep space images? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy



  • Earth & The Environment

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Galaxy Interactions and Cosmic Illusions: Webb's Stunning New Images

How did stars form 7 billion years ago, or approximately halfway between the Big Bang and now? This is what a recent study published in the Monthly Notices




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A New Look at Galaxy Boundaries: Discoveries from Deep Imaging of Cosmic Gas

What are the exact sizes of galaxies, and are they bigger than they appear in deep space images? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy




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Celebrating Disability Pride Month: Image of Inclusion – Advocating for Inclusive Visual Representation

Littler’s Anna Curry Gualano is joined by her father, Ashley Curry, to discuss their advocacy work in Alabama to update the traditional accessibility symbol to one that is more inclusive and empowering.
  




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Changes to Florida’s Name, Image, and Likeness Rules

Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) opportunities have been a hot topic in college sports since the summer of 2021. In July 2021, the NCAA released an Interim NIL Policy. Before then, individual states had passed laws allowing college athletes to enter NIL deals. Florida was one of the earliest states to enact an NIL law. Passed in 2020, it went into effect in July 2021. Recent amendments to Florida’s NIL law will have a substantial impact upon businesses looking to enter NIL deals with athletes at Florida schools and upon Florida schools with intercollegiate athletic programs.




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Montana Enacts a Name, Image, and Likeness Law for Student-Athletes

Montana Senate Bill 248 went into effect on June 1, 2023. This law allows student-athletes to earn compensation from Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) endorsement deals and is part of a trend of NIL legislation being passed by states that allow student-athletes to monetize endorsement deals.




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Maryland Enacts a Name, Image, and Likeness Law

Maryland has enacted a law allowing student-athletes to earn compensation from name, image, and likeness (NIL) endorsement deals. The law, Md. Code Ann., Educ. § 15-131, went into effect on July 1, 2023, and is part of a continuing trend of states implementing legislation allowing student-athletes to monetize endorsements.




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The Image of Africa in the Literature of the Harlem Renaissance

New essay by Trudier Harris, "The Image of Africa in the Literature of the Harlem Renaissance," added to Freedom's Story: Teaching African American Literature and History, TeacherServe from the National Humanities Center.




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The New Negro and the Black Image: From Booker T. Washington to Alain Locke

New essay, "The New Negro and the Black Image: From Booker T. Washington to Alain Locke," by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, added to Freedom's Story: Teaching African American Literature and History, TeacherServe from the National Humanities Center.




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Mirror Image Sandra Brown.

A master of romantic suspense, Sandra Brown spins an action-packed tale of mistaken identity, political intrigue, and assassination. The crash of a Dallas-bound jet wasn't just a tragedy for TV reporter Avery Daniels; it was an act of fate that handed her a golden opportunity to further her career, but made her the crucial player in a drama of violent passions and deadly desires. After plastic surgery transforms her face, Daniels is mistaken for a glamorous, selfish woman named Carole Rutledge-wife of the famous senatorial candidate Tate Rutledge who is a member of a powerful Texas dynasty. As she lay helpless in the hospital, Daniels made a shattering discovery: Someone close to Tate planned to assassinate him. Now, to save Tate's life, Avery must live another woman's life-and risk her own...




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Re-imagining Africa’s food security within the context of climate change and ecological sustainability

Re-imagining Africa’s food security within the context of climate change and ecological sustainability

This press-release was initially published by WWF on December 12, 2023.  WWF, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, IFPRI, CGIAR, and AfDB have released a new report to help African countries to achieve food security and implement climate and nature commitments. The report is based on a joint study, executed with the technical support […]

The post Re-imagining Africa’s food security within the context of climate change and ecological sustainability appeared first on IFPRI.




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Satellite images show devastation in Sudan 1 year since conflict began (ABC News)

Satellite images show devastation in Sudan 1 year since conflict began (ABC News)

"Satellite imagery shows the reduction in green vegetation cover, the increased aridity points to the neglect or destruction of previously irrigated fields” Oliver Kirui told ABC News.

The post Satellite images show devastation in Sudan 1 year since conflict began (ABC News) appeared first on IFPRI.




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Repair, Repurpose, Reimagine

"Reduce, reuse, recycle." We've heard that for decades - but does it work? This hour, TED speakers reimagine the well-known slogan and reconsider how we think about what we consume and throw away. Guests include right-to-repair advocate Gay Gordon-Byrne, materials scientist Andrew Dent, technologist Jamie Beard and animal scientist Ermias Kebreab.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Repair, Repurpose, Reimagine (2022)

Original broadcast date: Friday, May 20, 2022. "Reduce, reuse, recycle." We've heard that for decades - but does it work? This hour, TED speakers reimagine the well-known slogan and reconsider how we think about what we consume and throw away. Guests include right-to-repair advocate Gay Gordon-Byrne, materials scientist Andrew Dent, technologist Jamie Beard and animal scientist Ermias Kebreab.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy




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The Future of Sustainability: Repair, repurpose, reimagine

"Reduce, reuse, recycle." We've heard that for decades - but does it work? This hour, TED speakers reimagine the well-known slogan and reconsider how we think about what we consume and throw away. Guests include right-to-repair advocate Gay Gordon-Byrne, materials scientist Andrew Dent, technologist Jamie Beard and animal scientist Ermias Kebreab. Original broadcast date: May 20, 2022

TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without sponsors. Sign-up at plus.npr.org/ted.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Designing the engineer of 2050: Canadian engineering educators meet in Toronto - National conference will spark discussion on reinventing education to prepare tomorrow’s diverse engineering leaders to address challenges we can’t yet imagine

National conference will spark discussion on reinventing education to prepare tomorrow’s diverse engineering leaders to address challenges we can’t yet imagineToronto, ON – The toughest problems facing humanity in the 21st century — from water scarcity to urban intensification to personalized medicine — will be tackled by tomorrow’s engineers. Many of the issues they will work to solve […]




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Billions-year-old sparkling water may hold clues for life on Earth and Mars - NOTE: Video and images at uoft.me/sparkling

NOTE: Video and images at uoft.me/sparklingTORONTO – A team of scientists from the University of Toronto and Manchester University in the United Kingdom have gone three kilometres beneath the surface of the Canadian Shield to find some of the oldest fluids in our planet’s history. The waters are rich in clues about lives lived without […]




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Image Processing in Battery Cell Manufacturing

In battery cell production, maintaining high quality and reducing material waste is crucial. Digital image processing and machine vision solutions enable reliable defect detection, ensuring the production of safe, high-quality battery cells for electric mobility.




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MidOpt SiLWIR Silicon Protective Windows for Industrial Imaging

The cost and lead times for Germanium optical components have skyrocketed.




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MARC DAVIS IMAGINEERING A DREAM

MARC DAVIS IMAGINEERING A DREAM by Marc Davis is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to LIMITED EDITION #96 OF 200 pcs




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SE Radio Episode 318: Veronika Cheplygina on Image Recognition

Felienne interviews Veronika Cheplygina about image recognition. We cover the basic concepts of computer vision, it’s applications and relationship to machine learning.





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Imagining a More Just Climate Future

When we think about climate change, we often think in terms of statistics, studies, and measurements of melting glaciers, dwindling wildlife populations, and mass human migration. It’s a grim reality.




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These things always run on longer than people imagine. (Pronunciation)



  • Pronunciation and Phonetics

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How to Search Google Images by Usage Rights

I found a great resource by Joyce Valenza on Never Ending Search that I wanted to share with you. In her post, Google search by usage rights, she demonstrates an easy way to find copyright-friendly images on Google Image Search.

First, enter your search term into Google Images and then click on Search Tools and then Usage Rights.


A drop-down menu appears offering the following options: not filtered by license, labeled for reuse, labeled for commercial reuse, labeled for reuse with modification, labeled for commercial reuse with modification.




Please read the rest of Joyce Valenza's article by clicking HERE to find many other copyright-friendly image search options!




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Zammuto: Beyond The Books, A Restless Imagination

Singer-songwriter Nick Zammuto spent most of the '00s as one half of the experimental folk duo The Books. In "Idiom Wind," working at the head of a new project, he tells the story of a man who needs to get his hands dirty.




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Yoran Imaging to Introduce Thermal Imaging Inspection & Data Capture Technology

The packaging solutions will be on display at Pack Expo Las Vegas Booth N-10942, September 11-13. 




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NAB Show New York Presents ‘Radio Reimagined’ Conference Lineup

The National Association of Broadcasters today unveiled the schedule for the Radio Reimagined | Charting Radio’s Future conference, one of two radio-focused tracks taking place at NAB Show New York. Held Thursday, October 20th at the Javits Center, Radio Reimagined is geared towards station-level radio managers, programmers and operators from all market sizes.




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Review of Children’s Social Care Services: Reimagine Children's Collective

Room 29, Parliament Buildings



  • Committee for Health

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The cells that stoke the imaginations of Stanford Medicine scientists

Our researchers picked cells from all over the human body — cells of all shapes, sizes and abilities. From the brain to the heart to the intestines.

The post The cells that stoke the imaginations of Stanford Medicine scientists appeared first on Scope.




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Exhibitions imagine a world where Buddha went West

SINGAPORE — Thai artist Natee Utarit's monumental embroidered work of a classical European building facade is the first thing that confronts viewers upon entering The Private Museum, a non-profit private museum in Singapore situated in Osborne House, a colonial mansion on Upper Wilkie Road.




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Asif Kapadia and Samantha Morton Imagine the Future in Trailer for La Jetée-Inspired 2073

The future looked quite bleak even before the events of last week, but now Asif Kapadia’s speculative hybrid feature 2073 feels all the more relevant following the disastrous American election. Following its Venice Film Festival premiere, the Samatha Morton-led project will arrive on December 27 and now the new trailer has been unveiled from NEON. […]

The post Asif Kapadia and Samantha Morton Imagine the Future in Trailer for La Jetée-Inspired 2073 first appeared on The Film Stage.




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Hollywood Studios: Reimagined Pixar Place returns with Incredibles, Edna Mode in May

Disney reopening Pixar Place, an 'Incredibles' meet-and-greet at Hollywood Studios in May.




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Standardized digitized image set on CD-ROM - (ITU-T Recommendation T.24)

Standardized digitized image set on CD-ROM - (ITU-T Recommendation T.24)
This digitized test chart set is an integral part of Recommendation T.24 and is published with it. This set of 409 Mbytes of images digitized with different resolutions includes:
- eight black and white ITU-T reference pages (the "CCITT images");
- test chart No. 4 (BW01);
- one legibility test chart;
- seven bi-level half-tone images made by processing gray-scale images with different algorithms;
- test chart No. 5 (CT01);
- two gray-scale images;
- test chart No. 6 (4CP01);
- 14 colour images with different resolutions and in different colour spaces (YUV, CMYK, RGB, CIELAB);
- low-contrast gray-scale images.
(Paper + CD-ROM)




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[ H.629.1 (11/19) ] - Scenarios, framework and metadata for digitalized artwork images display system

Scenarios, framework and metadata for digitalized artwork images display system




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GSTP-NTSU - NT software upgrade for one image

GSTP-NTSU - NT software upgrade for one image




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[ F.780.1 (03/22) ] - Framework for telemedicine systems using ultra-high definition imaging

Framework for telemedicine systems using ultra-high definition imaging






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PHOTOS: Images from the IRE 2022 Show Floor

Check out our exclusive photo gallery from Day 1 of the International Roofing Expo.