My team manages the digital signage program for my company. This consists of large flatscreen displays in building lobbies/offices for news and other info.
I'm able to retrieve a basic Smartsheet doc using the API. I can use the signage software to mock up how the basic data is laid out. This is pretty easy with a basic Smartsheet that isn't much more complex than something like an Excel document. Columns for HeaderText, BodyText, eventStartDate, eventEndDate, etc.
We have a request to show more complicated Smartsheet dashboards/reports. I think laying this all out using the signage software would be unreasonable, if not impossible.
Is it possible to use the Smartsheet API to export an image of what the dashboard looks like, and then we could more easily display that and just update it every hour. I'm thinking of something like an API generated screenshot.
Something similar to the 'export as pdf' option a user has but using the API instead, and perhaps with some options.
The Smartsheet API does not support the scenario you've described -- i.e., it's not currently possible to use the API to obtain an image of a dashboard. While you could use the Get Dashboard operation to obtain the data that describes a dashboard -- you'd have to write all the logic to take that data and create the visual of the dashboard in your system -- not very feasible, in my opinion.
You also mentioned reports. A report in Smartsheet is basically structured the same as a sheet (columns and rows, etc.) -- so it would be feasible to use the Get Report operation to retrieve the data for a report, and then recreate it in your system the same way as you've described being able to do so for Sheets.