User:Ichbinniemand/Chameleon (software)

<!--- Chameleon Studio Software(R) is an industry standard series of digital photography applications and processes brought together to improve workflow for youth sports, school and event photography. The underlying technology used for merging images with large volumes of complex data is also used in standalone software products for Identification systems and the automation of dye-sublimation printing workflow.

The system was conceived by Arnim Vogel in 2009 to help him automate the task of photographing soccer players and printing out sport trading cards. There was no difficulty in photographing the soccer players, but what became cumbersome was relating the photos to the names of players and then relating this to their jersey numbers, team names and league. It became clear to Vogel that he needed to be able to merge data and images in an automated fashion to speed things up and reduce the chance of errors. The "point of sale" image/data merge was thus conceived.

Development and specifications
Vogel hired a Polish developer named Jaroslaw Kraska who had considerable experience in the integration of data with images using vector based illustration applications. Development of the software began with a desktop module around September 2009. This module would combine a database of player or student information with a cropped and keyed (from a green screen) .png image of an athlete or student. Rendering of final photo products was performed on the desktop and later archived to be available for printing. Paper order forms were generated at the time the photo was taken and parents had to submit on site or mail the form in with payment.

The second development phase consisted of moving the ordering online. The same order form that was presented at the time of image capture (that contained the child's image already mocked up in a series of products such as mousepads, mugs, trading cards, etc) also provided a URL, user ID and password for logging into an online ordering system.

Customizations
One of the strengths of the Chameleon system is the degree to which it can be customized. Vogel had started working with Cascading Style Sheets in 2000 and realized the incredible power available for formatting a web page simply by pointing the browser to a different style sheet. Customizability and multi-lingual support was architected in from the start so that future photographers using the system could format it to match the look and feel of their existing websites. Templates could be created for trading cards and all other photo gifting products to match a photographers unique requirements. Everything from league/team or school logos, fonts and colors was available to be modified.

Krasbit Technologies also developed a Software Development Kit (SDK) for use by online systems that did sports league and school management software. This SDK provided for "1 click integration" of data from the management system to be imported in a photographer's chameleon(R) system to allow them to be ready for photographing large volumes of people.

Further integrations with voice broadcast systems and other partners strengthened the applications role as a true end-to-end workflow application. --->