Today I’m sizing-up and sharing a few Web 2.0 resources that can be used for re-sizing or visualizing online products and images. Please note…I only included applications that specialized in sizing or re-sizing images. I will share some additional imaging programs in a later post.

The first Web 2.0 App deals specifically with size visualization. Sizeasy is a handy link that you can use to help students compare size in terms of length and width. Size can be a difficult concept for young students (heck, sometimes I have trouble visualizing size as well). I think this application would be a great application to help students with that visualization process, especially if a teacher projected the web app after asking students a comparison-type question…”do you think an item that is 6×6x2 would be larger than a deck of cards or smaller?”

Sizeasy is also a great tool to use if you are shopping online and would like to compare two different objects (Zune size vs iPod size for example). Simply input the size of an item to see it compared it to an item of your choice (deck of cards for example) or input two items using the comparison tab. Sizeasy will create an image that shows a size comparison in 3-D mode, or from the top, side, or front view. No registration required.

“ResizR is a nifty, free and very useful little helper. ResizR allows you to resize an image from your local computer or the web.” Simply upload an image or input a URL location, type in a size and voila your image is ready and you can download the resized image to your computer. This app is quick and easy to use and no registration is required!

Rsizr is another image resizing application, but I consider more advanced than ResizR. I would suggest that you use this Flash application if you need to enlarge a smaller-sized JPG, PNG, and GIF images on your computer. “With Rsizr, in addition to normal image rescaling and cropping, you can also resize images using a new image resizing algorithm called seam carving (a method of image retargeting) that tries to keep intact areas in your image that are richer in detail.” I experimented with this little application and got some pretty impressive results. The site links to some impressive information and a YouTube movie that demonstrates the power of seam carving. After you have picked up on the basics of using this free, no registration-required application try some of the more advanced features demonstrated in the video.

Some additional sizing applications that were OK, but didn’t quite size up (in my humble opinion) to the resources I already shared include:

• reshade (size options for the free version were limited)
• dosize (this would be fine if you need to reduce size for emailing)