I\'m currently working on getting images for product options showing up on my first magento build. I have THIS figured out for bundled product, like so:
You can get an array of simple products used in the configurable by using the getUsedProducts() method. This method is not part of the standard product model, but can be found in app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Model/Product/Type/Configurable.php, so you'll need to first get the configurable product model using getTypeInstance(). That method accepts a single parameter stating whether or not you'd like to return the type model as a singleton (I did).
foreach ($_product->getTypeInstance(true)->getUsedProducts() as $simpleProduct) {
// From this you should be able to get the image url
}
UPDATE
In spConfig as created by Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View_Type_Configurable::getJsonConfig() there is an options array containing the product_ids specific to that configurable option.
spConfig :
attributes : {
603 : {
id : 603,
code : part_state,
label : "Part State",
options : [
{
id : 648,
label : Harvested,
price : 0,
products : [204379] // <-- Simple Product ID
},
{
id : 647,
label : New,
price : 0,
products : [224333]
}]
},
...
At this point, you can either:
getJsonConfig to include a simple product image URL, orI'll give you an example of #2 so you can see what functions you might use.
$spImages = array();
foreach ($this->getAllowProducts() as $_sp) {
$spImages[$_sp->getId()] =
(string)$this->helper('catalog/image')
->init($_sp, 'small_image')
->resize(40,40);
}
// It is necessary to cast the URL to a `string` because the actual work done by
// Mage_Catalog_Helper_Image happens in the `__toString()` method... weird!
Now that you have a way to associate an image URL with a simple product ID, you'll need to update the image based on the current selected option. Magento's Product.Config has a configureElement() method that is triggered when the changes, so I would tap into that. If you're not comfortable doing that, you've got all the information in spConfig.config and spImages from which you could write your own onChange event handler.