Why have browsers not provided a client solution for image scaling yet?

Question

If you have ever worked in web development than you have built an image uploader that had to scale the image server side at some point in your career.Given the frequency of this of this super common wanted behavior in websites, why is it that we have GPS tracking and webcam stuff like webrtc but we still can't scale a common jpg? Google, Mozilla? Anyone?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvKTOHVGNbg

tedmiston · Accepted Answer

I think one reason is that image resizing algorithms are nontrivial. An image uploader sounds simple enough until you start supporting many different scaling algorithms [1] across a bunch of formats. Browsers are already big and complex enough IMO. This could be easily / best handled by a library instead.
Another point is that holding onto the unmodified images server-side (and merely serving a cached, resized, optimized version on the fly) can be beneficial for future use cases.
Check out, e.g., Thumbor [2] if you're curious to see more of the complexities involved. I have self-hosted it for a company before, and it worked well.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_scaling
[2]: https://github.com/thumbor/thumbor

logicalmonster · Answer

In most cases where users are uploading images, you probably want to get the biggest possible version you can get for more future flexibility. It's always possible to make a larger image smaller, but making a small image look good bigger in the future isn't possible as that extra detail would be lost.

8organicbits · Answer

I thought Javascript and canvas worked fine?https://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/01/how-to-develop-a-html5-ima...

throwmeaway1212 · Answer

Because it's done server side so that the minimal size can be sent to the client whilst also aiming to get maximum quality. It means you don't always have to send the largest highest image to every user, you can just send the most efficient/appropriate image. i.e. If you wanted a thumbnail of a massive image and it was done client side then you'd have to send that massive image even if it wasn't needed.

MatthiasPortzel · Answer

Because you should be processing the images on the server side anyways. I guess it would be nice to cut down on file transfer size, but at the end of the day you need size limits enforced on the server. I recommend pulling in an image processing library on the server side and reformatting it before saving it, in order to eliminate a class of issues with invalid images.

morphicpro · Answer

"do i look like i know what a jpeg is i just want a picture of a god dang hot dog" -- My Chrome browser