Every Cardano NFT (8.5m+) in one web page (Deep Zoom Viewer)

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Erfan Haque

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

10

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

We will deliver an interactive viewer containing all past & future Cardano NFTs in one webpage, enhancing visibility, driving discovery & generating engagement for NFT creators and owners alike.

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

Yes

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

BlockchainArtWorks (BCAW) is a partner of NFTCDN, a company that provisions NFT images in a fast and optimised manner. BCAW will use NFTCDN capabilities to acquire both historical and future NFTs minted on Cardano. The proposal assumes NFTCDN’s Image API endpoint exists to continually update the deep-zoom viewer with newly minted NFTs. The proposer is the founder of NFTCDN and is confident in the financial outlook of NFTCDN for the long term.

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

No

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

While the Deep-Zoom Immersive Viewer (DZIV) will use open source software that is publicly available, the solution design (fetching all NFTs and programmatically making the deep-zoom image), pipeline (continually updating the viewer with latest NFTs) and architecture (various middleware to operate the product and platform) will remain proprietary/confidential owing to, amongst other reasons, security concerns (e.g. paid API credentials, vulnerabilities, attack vectors and abuse) if made public.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution.

About BlockchainArtWorks

BlockchainArtWorks (BCAW) was established in 2021 with the intent of bringing to the fore the Cardano community’s expression of identity, values, ideas and emotions in the form of digital art minted as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the Cardano blockchain. Our goal is to provision a rich, immersive and seamless viewing experience for everyone in their journey of discovering and engaging with these unique works of digital artistry.

Using our substantially developed deep-zoom technology we delivered our abstract generative art publication (“6 million blocks”) and are now looking to deploy this technology to display ALL the NFTs minted historically and also those which will be minted in the future on a continual basis on Cardano to:

• Enhance visibility of the large volume of rich and diverse artworks contained within NFTs minted on Cardano;
• Drive discovery of NFT portfolios amongst NFT content creators and owners alike, from both within and outside of the Cardano community;
• Generate engagement between community members and people outside of the community.

Problem Statement

At present, the Cardano ecosystem features NFT viewers in isolation, i.e. either a single NFT is viewable at a time, or a group of NFTs under a single Policy ID is viewable. This way of viewing NFTs, while adequate for NFT owners and other users to view and enjoy digital arts, requires knowledge of the NFT Asset Fingerprint and/or Policy ID - without these, they are only able to view NFTs that are featured in lists (e.g. Marketplace listings), or those being minted or transferred (e.g. transaction viewer).

This poses a lost opportunity of discovery of the vast array of rich and diverse portfolio of artworks within Cardano - work(s) that content creators have poured numerous hours of effort into - as it necessitates people to keep on top of new mints, or actively browse NFT listings to discover NFT artworks. Additionally, the viewing experience is neither seamless (jumping through multiple pages or continually scrolling with breaks) nor rich (isolated frames or boxes), resulting in very little browsing/face-time and therefore engagement.

To counter this problem, the proposer has produced a prototype of a Deep-Zoom Interactive Viewer (DZIV), that would bring all the NFTs minted on Cardano into one webpage, providing a rich, immersive and seamless viewing experience for everyone.

Solution Design & Current Prototype

We will use deep zoom technology to build the viewer and a working prototype can be found in the link below:

https://cardano.blockchainart.works

• The prototype features c. 300,000 NFTs minted between epochs 300 - 310.
• NFT images are placed in an algorithmically generated grid with random cell positioning
• NFT images are sequentially placed in order of their mint-date, starting from the top left, working downwards in columns.
• The prototype features NFT images at 128, 256, 512 and 1024px resolution
• The prototype has working interactive capability including, but not limited to, panning and zooming (controlled with mouse, keyboard or touch) and full-screen viewing to provide a fully immersive viewing experience.
• NB. The prototype has been hosted on a cheap, low-cost virtual machine. As such, the performance/loading speeds is not indicative of the final MVP’s outputs. Provisions have been made within the budget for this proposal for the purchase of dedicated hosting solutions that will substantially improve loading speeds.

The proposal is intended to fund development works (i) to scale this MVP to contain all the NFTs minted on Cardano to date, (ii) and a working solution for newly minted NFTs on an ongoing basis.

Future Product Roadmap:

• Metadata Implementation - Click on an NFT to acquire metadata plus raw image
• NFT Search Functionality - Search by Asset Fingerprint ID
• Marketplace Aggregator - Display if NFT is on listing(s) for sale/offer

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community.

• Delivered capability to view all NFTs in an interactive and immersive experience
• Bringing to the fore a place where all NFT content creators’ work can be appreciated leading to driving to purchases/sales of NFTs in marketplaces
• Celebration of Cardano’s rich and diverse NFT history

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

A working prototype has already been delivered and a link has been provided in this proposal for viewing. Therefore, we have high confidence in being able to deliver the full working product, as it requires development to scale-up to the large volume of NFTs (8.5m) and creation of an operational framework to capture newly minted NFTs. From a technical perspective as most risks have been identified and addressed during prototype development. Additionally, the proposer is the founder of NFTCDN, and has successfully delivered a proposal in Fund 8 ($79k funds managed) to create Cardano’s NFT Content Delivery Network.

[Project Milestones] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone #1: Secure List of Collateral

• Duration: 2 months
• Total Budget: 20% of proposal budget
• Outcomes:
• Core systems setup complete to fetch NFT information
• All historical NFT information acquired up to freeze point
• Master database setup complete
• Acceptance Criteria:
• An end-to-end infrastructure is set up to capture all NFTs minted on Cardano
• A master database is created to house the information
• Evidence:
• Report showing systems setup and running, including database output of volume of NFTs

Milestone #2: Acquire All Collateral

• Duration: 2 months
• Total Budget: 20% of overall budget
• Outcomes:
• DZIV grid generation complete
• Complete DZIV layout established
• All NFT images secured
• Acceptance Criteria:
• DZIV grid created
• NFTs assigned to each grid cell
• All NFTs downloaded
• Evidence:
• Report showing DZIV grid and layout, NFT volume secured

Milestone #3: Development (Deep Zoom Images)

• Duration: 2 months
• Total Budget: 20% of overall budget
• Outcomes:
• Pre-processing completed for all NFT images
• Historical NFTs implemented within DZIV
• Acceptance Criteria:
• NFTs pre-processed, ready to be stitched into DZIV
• DZVI images ready for implementation into platform
• Evidence:
• Report showcasing pre-processed image examples, and DZVI image samples

Milestone #4: Development (Operational Pipeline)

• Duration: 2 months
• Total Budget: 20% of overall budget
• Outcomes:
• Newly minted NFT image pipeline to DZIV design complete
• Acceptance Criteria:
• Operational pipeline can capture newly minted NFTs and programatically create DZVI images to update the viewer
• Evidence:
• Report showcasing successful creation of DZVI image, programatically, with newly minted NFTs

Milestone #5: Development (Platform) & Publication

• Duration: 2 months
• Total Budget: 20% of overall budget
• Outcomes:
• Platform ready for publication
• Close out report & video
• Acceptance Criteria:
• Platform created to host DZI viewer
• Platform is accessible, and functionality operates as expected
• Close out report and video completed
• Evidence:
• Working MVP publication
• Close out report and video

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Rocky

• Owner & creator of BlockchainArt.Works
• Founder of NFTCDN
• Strategy development, execution & operational delivery
• 14+ years Project Management experience
• 20+ years Full-Stack Development experience
• Proposal Role: Project Management, Development, Marketing

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

Labour (Development, Management, Marketing) = $78,950

• Design, development, testing and deployment of Deep-Zoom Viewer
• End-to-end proposal delivery management
• All reporting & communications as per Catalyst requirements

Infrastructure = $7,200

• Storage of raw DZI file set
• Hosted processing machine for DZI building
• Platform hosting solution

Total = $86,150 (ADA 246,143 @ $0.35)

[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The costs for development and management of the proposal have been calculated based on national (UK) freelance rates for a 10 month project. Infrastructure costs are the best-value sourcing estimates (as of writing) for hosting solutions required for the pre-processing computation work(s) and operational running of the platform in a fast and uninterrupted manner.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agrees to Fund Rules and also that data in the submission form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept