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Davatar White Paper

Davatar which means Dynamic Avatar, pronounce as "Daa-va-tar".

Dynamic Avatar greatly enhances the traditional avatar, not only allowing rich information presentation on the same piece of image, but also provide a centralized identity managment system.

Davatar uses the technology of dynamically generating images on fly to give viewers different experience on each request.

Davatar is interesting and fun, and it is easy to create and use by anyone in the virtual world!

Dynamic Vs. Static Avatar

Defination of an Avatar

Like the traditional static Avatar, a Davatar is a Dynamic Avatar, which shares the same characteristic of the Avatar.

According to Wikipedia...
Among people working on virtual reality and cyberspace interfaces, an avatar (sometimes AV or av) is an icon or representation of a user in a shared virtual reality. This definition has recently been applied to online virtual communities and Internet forums in particular, as a picture that a member/user of such a community/forum has elected to display alongside his or her contributions in order to represent him or herself.

The use of Avatar on The Internet

In late 1995 with the born of The Internet and graphical browser, people started to use Avatar on BBS (Bulletin Board System). Now, the traditional avatar system used on most Internet forums is a small (100x100 pixels, for example) square shaped area close to the user's forum post, where the avatar is placed. The style used varies. In one system, the user either designs an avatar on their personal computer before uploading it to the forum or downloads one from a website. Other forums may allow the user to select an avatar from a preset list.

These avatar are static and the image will never change until the user uploaded a new one or modified the link.

We wants more!

Traditional static avatar did their job well before users demands more out of them. Users wish to include more information inside this limited size of image, which enable them to present themselve better by deliver a stronger sense of virtual Identity. However, as traditional avatar is never meant to be use in such purposes, it never work well.

Davatar answer: We are 'Live' and 'Dynamic'

Davatar was design to solve this problem by overcome the weakness of the static behaviour of a traditional avatar. Also refered to as the Live Avatar, the dynamic feature of a Davatar add in another dimension into a traditional avatar, and it is 'Time'. With this new dimension, Davatar unleashed the limitation of information that could be include inside this little piece of Avatar image, allowed more room for creativity and personalization to growth!

The Born of Davatar

Davatar Founder, eXiang:

In year 2004, I got inspired to make my avatar on forum look more fun and interesting by corresponding to dynamic elements while playing with Computer Generated Images by using PHP GD. I then tried to search around The Internet and found no implementation or discussion on this.

After I had scripted the very first version of Davatar and used it on my favorite forum, other users started to notice it and got attracted. They even asked for my services to allow them to easily create and host one. This lead to my decision to start working on Davatar.net with my partners at Xullum, to provide the Worldwide Internet Surfer a FREE and EASY to use Davatar hosting service.

The Origin of Davatar Logo

Davatar logo was inspired by a bug that looks like a human face from top down view (like what shown in the photo).

The reason for us to choose the bug as our symbol is not only because it represent the idea of Avatar (which means a representative image of a person) but also the dynamic usage of the bug's body texture for its protection and decoration.

We do not know what is the bug's name; We just call it "The Human Face Bug". If you happen to know its real name, please tell us.

Feature of Davatar

Architecture of Davatar

A Dynamic Avatar is basically a piece of image that generated "Dynamically" or "On the Fly" when requested.

Davatar Type

All Davatars available on Davatar.net are logically categorized into "Custom Davatar" and "Premade Davatar".

There is also another special Davatar Type where it is actually a "Direct Seed Image Linking". A Direct Seed Image Linking "Davatar" do not correspond to any other dynamic elements except the Image Output Format.

	Davatar Type	Code	Dynamic	Customizable
	Custom Davatar	CTM
	Premade Davatar	PMD
	Direct Seed Image Linking	IMG

Davatar URL

A Davatar is a dynamic image resource that is requested from our server. The request URL is presented here, broken into its segments.

The URL always begins with the "Davatar User Request URL". It starts with Davatar.net domain and followed by either a Directory Name or a Shortcut Marker.

User Directory Base (Standard)	http://davatar.net/user/
User Shortcut	http://davatar.net/~

A mandatory parameter named "Davatar User Key" follows this. Davatar.net allows greatest flexiblity for user by providing multiple Davatar User Key. This's value could be a User ID number (By Default), User Name (Human Reading Friendly) or a 40 character hexadecimal Sha1 Encoded User Primary Email Address (For Globally Recognizable Davatar).

User ID	http://davatar.net/user/1
User Name	http://davatar.net/user/exiang
User Encoded Email	http://davatar.net/user/8bd0dd8351a4f472187daa1d4c8db8e2ca73d26a

Now, the URL will be followed by a "Davatar Type Code".

Custom Davatar	http://davatar.net/user/1/ctm
Shortcut that point to Custom Davatar too	http://davatar.net/user/1/
Premade Davatar	http://davatar.net/user/1/pmd
Direct Seed Image Linking	http://davatar.net/user/1/img

And next, the "Davatar ID"

Custom Davatar on Package Slot 1	http://davatar.net/user/1/ctm1
It's Shortcut	http://davatar.net/user/1/1
Premade Davatar with ID 1	http://davatar.net/user/1/pmd1
Direct Seed Image Linking from Seed Storage Slot 1	http://davatar.net/user/1/img1

And last, the "Image Format"

PNG (Portable Network Graphics)	http://davatar.net/user/1/ctm1.png
JPG (Joint Photographics Experts Group)	http://davatar.net/user/1/ctm1.jpg
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)	http://davatar.net/user/1/ctm1.gif

Please Note that all Davatar users have their "Default Davatar URL" that always pointed to their Custom Davatar inside Package Slot 1. The Format of this URL will skip the Davatar Type and shown as:

http://davatar.net/user/1.png

Davatar Layers

Davatar is architectured into layers where each layer holds an images and are able to be influenced by dynamic elements.

By default, the architecture allows unlimited layer. However, this flexiblity would means a problem to a Free services provider like Davatar.net,where more layers will consume more processing power. Therefore, we shrunk it down into 6 layers where each of them play a different role:

	Layer Name	Layer Function
	Watermark	Watermark hold the watermark image that overlay all the others layers. It could also be use for advertising purposes.
	Icon	Icon is small in size, but the underlying engine allows it to fill up the whole Davatar Image space Icon could be place into any of the 8 corners of a Davatar Image as well as the center. Icons are virtually categorize into Viewer Icon and Owner Icon. A viewer icon corresponding to dynamic elements from the viewer/client side and a owner icon corrensponding from the Davatar owner setting on the server side.
	Foreground	Foreground is the layer that holds either color RGBA value or a foreground image. It can be use as a colour filtering, frame, or just any other info that needed to be place on top of the Core Avatar Image.
	Core Avatar	This is the most essential layer that build up a Davatar. It hold the representative image that make a Davatar act like an avatar (sound confusing :-)). It also contributes to the Davatar image dimension size.
	Background	Similar with Foreground layer, a Background layer work almost the same except it is underlying the Core Avatar layer. It functions as a background color for Davatar - incase the browser does not support transparency and could also be a background image.
	Canvas	If Core Avatar image is the soul, Canvas is the body. Canvas layer is the foundation where all others layers built upon and depending on. It is also a transparent layer.

Davatar Possiblities

Davatar	Description
Background
	Background using RGB Color instead of using an image.
	Transparent background, allows a Davatar to display the underlying webpage background color. Semi transparency is possible wih a RGBA background color value. For browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 that do not support this feature, a backup background color will be use.
Foreground
	Instead of placing frame for foreground, other images can be use to overlap over the core avatar image.
	A semi transparent image layer with gradient effect or a RGBA color value could be place infront of the Davatar acting as a color filtering layer.
	A stylish image layer could also be use as for stylish filtering effect.

Dynamic Elements

Davatar is generated by corresponding to a list of dynamic elements. Dynamic elements are categorize by their dynamic bahaviour into:

• Static
• Random
• Sequential
• Conditional

Please note that some of these dynamic element data are acquired from the viewer side (client) and some are from the owner side (server). However, currently, we have not implemented all of them here into Davatar.net yet.

	Dynamic Elements	Description
Static
	Static	There is no image selection and thus same image display all the time.
Random
	Random	Images selection base on computer generated random number
Sequential
	Cycle	Sequentially display images in cyclic pattern
Conditional
	Web Browser	Base on which web browser software that a party is using
	Operating System	Base on which operating system that a party is using
	Country	Base on which country a party is located
	Weather	Current weather condition where a party is located
	Time	Images selection base on current time, could be day/night, month and day, and even up to minute and second
	Messenger Status	Image selection base on messenger online or offline status, supports Yahoo, ICQ and AIM
	My Mood	Image selection base on user current mood

The License & Copyright of Davatar

The idea of Davatar (Dynamic Avatar) is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales License.

We, the people at XULLUM and the creator of DAVATAR do not believe in software patents. However, we do believe in copyright to protect the free use of the idea.

We like the idea of DAVATAR being recognised by people world wide and use it freely. We are also aware that a few similar ideas have been implementated in different form throughout the internet.