Ok, I'm hoping I can explain my situation rather than pasting lines and lines of code.
Currently, JSON sends positional info to my PHP file which in turn uses this data to generate an image, saves it and returns the filename via JSON back to browser. Javascript then refreshes the image on screen.
This all works fine at the moment, but I am wanting to optimise the process and look at the possibility of outputting the image file straight after it's created then save afterwards.
My ideal solution would be something like:
header('Content-Type: image/gif');
echo $this->canvas;
// Save user file
$this->canvas->writeImage( $this->userFile = 'user_img.gif' );
$this->canvas->destroy();
// encode everything and send to browser
echo json_encode(array('misc data back to the browser'));
(I still need to send data back to browser via JSON)
And in my HTML I would have the image laid out like this:
<img src='json-processing-script.php' />
But as usual nothing is ever that simple, so I'd like to hear if anyone can make any pointers.