How to design a blueprint of a house and change siding colors

[wfernley]

Hi everyone.

OK I got a complex project I have to do and I thought I would post on this site to see if anyone has done this before or know how I could do it.

My client wants to have a section of the site where they can have a blueprint or picture of a house and they can change siding types, shutter types and colors for both. Now I was wondering what the best way to do this is. I have heard of it before. Does anyone know how I can do it?

Thanks :)

Wes

[fidibidabah]

Personally, I would have one large image cut into slices with photoshop. You'd have to decide whether there would need to be neutral pieces (ones which wouldn't change regardless of what the user selects.. for instance, the window area), then take the slices and open them invidually, making sure they are the same size, and simply change the color/texture/style. Then it's just a simple JS or CSS script to swap the images based on what the user selects (either a dropdown menu or radio buttons)... definately a bit of work, depending on the images they can provide for you... but doable, definately doable.

[danieljean]

agreed, that's definitely doable. Flash may be quicker for this type of work, but doing it with javascript is more elegant since users won't need a plug-in

[pleeker]

agreed, that's definitely doable. Flash may be quicker for this type of work, but doing it with javascript is more elegant since users won't need a plug-in

Then again, thanks to pop-ups and other web garbage, a fair amount of folks surf with javascript off, so that's no guarantee, either.

I'm no fan of Flash, but this is the type of content that I think is perfectly suited and best done in Flash.