Graphical Content on Mobile Devices

Abstract

The enthusiasm for mobile computing is still unbroken as a year on year increase of 51% in the overall global shipments of mobile devices in the fourth quarter of 2004 has shown (Canalys.com, 2005). With 300 million new subscribers in 2004 alone, 27% of the world’s population now has access to mobile communications (Svanberg, 2005). A mobile device is a natural multi-functional device and the opportunity to handle multimedia data is only the first step on a long way. Although the development of mobile devices has already made great progress, handling graphical data is still expensive due to the limited resources in mobile environments. Especially if large graphics must be processed limits are quickly reached. However, it is necessary to provide effective and appealing graphical representations for successful m-commerce. The aim of this article is to derive major limitations of current mobile hardware and to show how large graphical content can be appropriately processed on such devices. Since visual content can be described either by vector (SVG, Flash) or raster data (Bmp, Gif), both approaches are explained and particular properties are shown. Based on experimental results, this enables us to give guidelines for the appropriate handling of large graphical contents in m-commerce applications. This contribution is structured as follows: in the section titled “Background”, properties of current mobile devices are reviewed and the displaying pipeline together with basic principles of vector and raster images is explained. These statements form the basis for our tests and comparisons in the “Main Discussions” section and statements for future work in the “Future Trends” section. Since there are huge differences in the performance in the handling of vector and raster images, we close our contribution by giving implementation guidelines for applications presenting large graphical content on mobile devices (“Conclusion”). “References” and “Key Terms” serve to provide sources for cited literature and definitions for related terms.