Besides the effort for the administration of hotspots and links, there are some functional limitations with conventional graphics depending on the target environment.

The generation of HTML pages for a Web browser can be done relatively easily. Also, the use of GIF or JPEG graphics with image maps for the hotspots is no problem with the appropriate software. As a result, you get a catalog page with a static graphic on which exists a few hotspots.

Since JPEG or GIF graphics do not support essential functions like zooming or moving, the catalog user must be content with how a graphic is initially displayed. One option would be to implement a second GIF/JPEG graphic with another scaling factor, so that the catalog user can view the depicted part in another size. However, there is a negative side-effect: The second graphic would also need defined hotspots and one will have to know in advance which detail representation would be desired.

In contrast, these problems do not occur when intelligent illustrations are used since the graphic objects define the hotspots themselves. However, this requires that an appropriate graphics viewer is used, such as IsoView. IsoView provides zooming and moving functions through additional control panels. For all zooming sizes it works directly with the intelligent vector graphic. No overlays are required.