I just knocked up a bit of javascript using some code I had lying around which can take a normal html page full of images and enhance those images to provide zoom and pan buttons like you get in Google Maps. It uses canvas for Firefox and VML for Internet Explorer and for non-javascript browsers will leave the page as it was before. There are a few css glitches going on in it, but I think it's pretty cool.

Take a look at it here

I've had plans for a completely javascript based diagram editor, and I see this experiment as being an important component of the final product when I manage to realise it.

Imagine being able to take normal html images and "pimp" them in such a way that you can now pan and zoom around them but also annotate them with tags. I don't think it would be too much more work for this functionality. I imagine a user double clicks on a part of a diagram and this creates a tag which when clicked loads a blank/previously edited note. The user can then edit or view that note.

A simple example is like the tagging facility in Facebook. I could have a photo of all the members of my team and add points telling the reader who they are. If the user has no javascript, they would just see an image, however on the other hand if my team mate Simon comes along with mighty Javascript he could then visibly see the note and interact with it - maybe adding a link to his cv on the note referring to him in the photo.

I sense a plugin coming along..