Forum/thread	Message
Forum: Q & A Thread: Adding sound to flash panoramas	Re: Adding sound to flash panoramas Posted: 17 Dec 2008 at 1:03 GMT go to thread John, there is an option in Pano2VR. Under HTML, enabled HTML and you will see the SOUND feature activated. I would however agree with the Heggy and ask you to please consider it. Forcing people to listen to music they did not ask for, not cool. Unless of course, it's a customer request regards Sebastian alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Question about using Flash for a CD (Non-VR)	Re: Question about using Flash for a CD (Non-VR) Posted: 10 Dec 2008 at 5:30 GMT go to thread Dear Jomla No problem what so ever to run that exe. If you notice, your SWF is (for example) 100kbs. After publish to EXE it becomes 3.23 Mb due to flash placing a copy of the actual standalone player along that swf file. Self contained file that has all there is required for flash to run. Of course the size will vary based on authoring tool version. The newer the application, the bigger the player. All the new features take up more space making the standalone larger with each release. best regards alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Question about using Flash for a CD (Non-VR)	Re: Question about using Flash for a CD (Non-VR) Posted: 9 Dec 2008 at 14:53 GMT go to thread Hi there Jomal, "You may also want to include Flash plug in checker so user don't have to bother installing it him/herself if not already installed." If you create executable, you don't need plug-in check because executable is standalone player. Upon export to EXE from Flash, Flash will wraps the player around swf file. As long as you run it on desktop, there is nothing esle you need. For Mac, you need to export from Flash as APP. Mac native stand alone application format. Place both files on CD and you will be able to view accordingly to whatever OS you going to use to run it on. Dear Doug "One of the Quotes says he'll convert the MPEGs to FLV and set up an .EXE Flash file, does that make sense?" Flash does not support any video format for dynamic loading except its native FLV. FLV are very easy to create, the encoder comes with flash program. You can also create one simply by importing the video into flash. The dialog will automatically pop up. Executable is basically stand alone player (EXE file). Flash has the option under File - publish setting - publish, formats tab. It's for desktop use only and can't be run within browser. Does not require user to have the plug in, as stated in previous replies. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Offline tour on DVD for slides/pans that auto runs	Re: Offline tour on DVD for slides/pans that auto runs Posted: 27 Sep 2008 at 17:57 GMT go to thread for DVD playback, I think the easiest, w/o any programming in flash and much work, you could actually use screen capture tools like Camtasia Studio or Adobe Captivate 3. Set the Panorama to auto rotate, screen capture with the program, pause, start another panorama, continue capture, and so on. You can assemble one long video footage and export to AVI or QuickTime H.264, then convert that to MPEG-2 and you are DVD ready. alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Gigapixel panorama viewer	Re: Gigapixel panorama viewer Posted: 25 Aug 2008 at 20:36 GMT go to thread Hi there I would like to explain something in regard to Flash Panoramas to help understand the limitations of both, the player as well as the programming involved. The player in all cases is identical, all your swf panoramas, will be using same player regardless what application producing the SWF file. Currently available Flash Player is the version 9.0.124.0 or the version 10, which is still in Beta stage for the upcoming Flash CS4 (a.k.a. Diesel) Even tho, the flash player 9 has some major improvements to increase performance and more efficient memory utilization over the version 8 and 7, there are still problems and limitations. Flash has always been very CPU intensive and the bottom line is, the larger the content the more CPU it will require. In case of your panorama, the image running within the flash player will be large and it's hard to obtain very satisfactory results. Adobe is constantly trying to improve it but in the same time they try to maintain very small player footprint to assure large market penetration, from desktop to mobile devices. The programming language used to produced these panoramas is an Action Script. ActionScript 2.0 (player 8,9,10) or 3.0 (player 9,10). When comes to this level of flash programming, things are pretty complicated and require some serious mathematical skills. Most of the Applications out there, are using similar source of freely available online engines and class libraries, written by groups of few talented individuals. Like the Vector3D engine www.video-animation.com/flash3d_006.shtml drawlogic.com/2008/04/15/as3-vector-3d-engine-fiv... or the Papervision3D www.papervision3d.org/docs/as3/ The applications commonly use to produce flash swf panorama, basically automate the assembly of SWF files so you don't need to know Flash or Action Script to create it, but if you look into the source code, you will realize that it is very much similar to what's available from the above, or other online resources. With some small changes here and there but the core idea and code is pretty much the same for all the programs. Considering the player limitation and action script itself, Flash is not going to provide you with superb quality panorama experience. There are still many things to be improved and refined. Perhaps later on, with the new player 10 and better flash panorama classes/3d engines. You might want to consider alternates like Quick Time, or Java based players. I did look at the krpano and it's ok, but it has same problems like other flash based panos. It can't handle big images, create soft feel to a bitmaps and start draining CPU whenever you zoom and pan while images are getting preloaded. While full screen became pretty slow and it took rather long time to load. I mean, almost an hour for a single panorama and I did not finish loading all, because it was just too long. By the time I left the page, the project was around 100MBs and consisted of 1,125 tiles, 1024x1024 each for just one pano: www.krpano.com/krpano.html?pano=panos/divingboard....xml With all due respect, it's quite impressive but with all honesty, I think Flash isn't there yet to handle gigapixel panoramas. regards Seba alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess...	Re: PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess... Posted: 14 Aug 2008 at 11:15 GMT updated: 14 Aug 2008 at 11:19 GMT go to thread cool ! lots of countries they ship the products to, except Malaysia I will try to look for alternate distributors. If I won't be able to find one, perhaps one of you would be kind enough to get it and forward it to me? I could paypal the $ or € up front, plus a little extra for the trouble and expenses related to it. I just found something on Amazon.com Do you think it would work? Hotshoe attached alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess...	Re: PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess... Posted: 14 Aug 2008 at 8:50 GMT go to thread Thanks Hans Will get myself one of these alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess...	Re: PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess... Posted: 14 Aug 2008 at 3:57 GMT go to thread John, thanks very much for the mail. I got your file and I used it as a template, worked very well. Thank you very much for taking the time to look into it. Promise to go back to your tutorials and read it more carefully. Hans, tell me please, how would I go about correcting that parallax errors on the Zenith ? After a while or setting up the head, following John's tutorial, I manage get the no-parallax-point. By looking through the view finder and comparing vertical objects in relation to each other. But how do I get to do that for the Zenith shot? Any tips? by the way, please know that I really appreciate all your help. It's easy to type "thank you", but I do really mean it. Thank you guys for all the help. best regards Sebastian alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess...	Re: PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess... Posted: 12 Aug 2008 at 18:37 GMT go to thread First of all, thank you very much for your time and replies DorinDXN: Thanks, will try next time to go every 60° with the Zenith. mediavets: Of course I can upload, tho the files are rather large, so for your convenience I'm uploading tif (scaled down from 3888pix to 2000pix) and jpg version. studios.njquality.com/pano/pano_pool.zip JPG 12.5MB studios.njquality.com/pano/pool_tif.zip TIF 25MB P.S. Sorry for the quality, I deleted previously processed images with TuFuse Pro and didn't want to do them all over again. Waisted few hours trying to get that stitch done, could not take it and trashed it all.(temper issues along with incompetence in using PTgui ) Pete: Appreciate feedback, will try it out and thanks for the link I'm going to explore the site right after I'm done uploading images for "mediavets" Thanks Roger and Nikos: With all honesty I did see the VIEWPOINT tutorial but I got a bit confused with all that. Not to mention when I started to setting up the pitch, it all start coming terribly wrong. I guess I will go back to it and start over. Problem is tho, I'm really poor in English especially when comes to technical terms. Even with help from Dictionary.com, explanations of these technical terms does not always make much sense. Anyway, I will print it out and try slowly step by step till I figure it out I was hoping I will get away with it but apparently it came back and beat me in the ..... Hans: Thanks for the details breakdown. I totally missed the part of "auto rotate", now that I read your reply I remember seeing it in one of the posts in here. I'm going to change the setting right away. In regard to the: "In this particular panorama you are missing that you do not have any controlpoints between some images." I was so fed up while trying to get this panorama done, that I remove all the control points to start over, screen shot and saved the image and totally forgot about it. The screen shot was taken in a wrong time, normally I pay attention to these messages. John: Thanks allot for all the tutorials. Appreciate you taking the time to share experience. They sure make the PTGui learning curve much easier. Once again, thank you very much, also for your input in this post. On the side note! I really like the Manfrotto Pano head but I find it a little bit too large and too heavy to take it around. Do you think getting the Nodal Ninja 3 will be a good substitute ? Do any of you have any experience with similar set up to mine, plus the Nodaj Ninja ? Best regards and good day to all of you Sebastian alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess...	PTGui Pro - very odd and unpredictable - due to my incompetence I guess... Posted: 12 Aug 2008 at 7:19 GMT go to thread Hi there guys Let me start with some info on the level of my skills and available tools. I'm pretty new to PTGui Pro and panoramas over all. I did many of these in form of Flash presentations, but I was always given properly stitched images by my clients, and my part was only to place it within Flash project (I'm working in Flash for living). I did things like Interior Designer's portfolio... etc... I didn't' do much of the actual photography and stitching part myself. Very recently, I've got more interest and some extra budget to start playing with it on my own. I have in here Canon 40D, 8mm Sigma F3.5 and Manfrotto 303SPH. I read lots of posts on this forum, tons of useful stuff. I also follow many of the tutorials, especially the one by John. Most of the time things work pretty well, considering my very limited experience on that topic. There are however times when no matter what I do things go wrong and by wrong I mean total mess and it's driving me crazy because I know there is something I'm missing and can't figure it out. Perhaps something very fundamental that I over look. I set up my tripod, make sure the lens is in best position possible. Learned it from John's tutorial "Finding the No-Parallax point". I do 4 shots all around plus one zenith and one nadir, so 6 total. Sometimes just 5 w/o the nadir. I will retouch the tripod in photoshop and that's smallest problem. I follow the same work flow and set up, and I get very different results. I import my images into PT Gui, sometimes the lens parameters are set automatically and sometimes I need to do it myself. Usually when detected automatically, I get best stitch results, and no so good when I need to do it manually. I pick Lens type Circular and FOV 180 degrees. I do CROP, apply to all and follow by Align Images. Just like in the John's tutorial "360 VR Stitching with PTGui for beginners" (I don't however set the SmartBlend parameters, seem that when I do this, the images are total mess. The first alignment comes out so unreasonable that I don't even want to bother playing with the control points, so I skip part of that tutorial and seem to work ok) Very often I get almost what I want, on the first go. Just minor adjustments like Horizontal and Vertical view, extra few control points. But sometimes, the alignment is way out, total mess that does not make any sense: I try to remove control points of large values, re optimize multiple times and it's usually get worse with every step. Then my images start rotating in the Project Assistant and there is no way I can get the stitch to look any usable. The lens parameters change to some very odd numbers, 300 plus, 170, or 145.11111 and so on. What am I missing here? Why using the same work flow I get such different results? I notice that when I remove the Zenith image, the stitching is much easier to achieve. Does it matter how do I shot the zenith? I mean, say I do 4 photos all around. 1, 2, 3 and 4. Does it matter whether I just turn the camera and get the zenith or shall I go back position of the 1, 2, 3 or 4 and then turn it upside down to get the zenith? Thanks for taking the time to read best regards Sebastian alert moderator
Forum: Panoguide website feedback Thread: Open link in new window.	Open link in new window. Posted: 17 Jul 2008 at 10:55 GMT go to thread Hi there Perhaps you could consider setting the forum in such way that links within posts get open in new window rather than current window. I often find myself following some link posted in the reply, and while on the newly open site, I click some more links, getting sidetracked from the forum. Naturally when done reading, close the window totally forgetting I would like to go back to the thread and read the follow up from other users. Sometimes I end up whacking the back button a lots of time or digging history to find the post instead of searching for it all over again. It's not major issue and the forum works just fine, but I think it just make more sense. regards Sebastian alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: demo of panos on CD ?	Re: demo of panos on CD ? Posted: 17 Jul 2008 at 10:39 GMT go to thread Hi there Just a quick note in addition to Doug's reply. I agree with Doug not to get into browser environment. Due to many security issues, latest browsers won't allow many things when comes to running content off line. Your best bet is to create EXE standalone Projector files (if you targeting Windows user). Many tools output panorama into SWF file, Flash's native format, which is meant for playback within browser using freely available player (ActiveX in IE) or plug-in (FireFox, Opera etc...). The SWF file could be easily converted in to EXE projector, hence run from the CD w/o any problem. Also, once you create the EXE standalone, your end user does not need Flash Player to run the files. By making SWF an EXE, flash wraps the player around it, make it self contained file. Now, the standalone player comes exclusively with Adobe Flash authoring program so I order to get it, you will need to install Flash. The player has no license limits so you can produce your EXE with 30 days DEMO Flash, and you are not violating anything. Even when Flash's 30 days demo expires, you will still be able to use your generated EXE files and you can still use the standalone player to make more exe's. It's a separate application within the Adobe Flash CS3 installation directory. You could create in Flash main control many kind of file, with bunch of thumbnails to your panoramas, call them from Flash using buttons in conjunction with FScommands. There are as well many nice 3rd party tools to tune these Flash generated EXE projectors. I do lots of standalone projectors, presentations and kiosks. I can wrap all your content into single EXE projector file so no one will be able to pick your individual files. I can also customize the presentation shape, screen position, set expire date, create transparencies, prevent print screen... and whatnot... If you generate the SWF using Pano2VR, you can even remove their right click menu with the link to Pano2VR website. Lots of things you can do to the file. Customize it so much, no one will even know it's a Flash file to start with. If you like me to help you up with it, do not hesitate to ask. I will be more than happy to assist. I have learn so much from this very forum when comes to Panorama photography, that I totally wouldn't mind the return a favor p.s. small example: studios.njquality.com/JH/pano_sample.zip 2.3MB exe file (VIRUS FREE) - pano2vr free from any names, right clicks, title bar, maximize/minimize buttons... custom icon and force screen center locations. Countless things you can do with it to run it of CD. regards Sebastian alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Panorama banner with AS code, possible?	Re: Panorama banner with AS code, possible? Posted: 17 Jul 2008 at 3:51 GMT go to thread In general - Possible. But there are few little factors you need to take under consideration. If you export your pano in SWF format, you could make one more SWF with Flash and load that panorama in level or movie clip holder, then on top of that holder place a button with the above action. Tho take note, this is Action script 1 and 2. The new AS 3.0 getURL handler is much different (flash.net.navigateToURL) so you will need to export Panorama in version not higher than Flash Player 8 if you want to use getURL method. Or you could simply go all the way flash 9 as 3.0 and just change the handler to the new navigateToURL. best regards Seba alert moderator
Forum: Tips & Tricks Thread: Life to panorama's	Re: Life to panorama's Posted: 24 May 2007 at 23:50 GMT go to thread You need to remember that unlike Quick Time, flash is fully interactive environment and it composed of multiple levels, timelines, movie clips, where each can do its own thing independently to the other. It can bring in dynamic content and can be entirely dynamically dirven by XML for example. There is no limit really to what you can do. regards Sebastian alert moderator
Forum: Q & A Thread: Really need help...I do not manage to stitch those images...	Re: Really need help...I do not manage to stitch those images... Posted: 16 May 2007 at 12:08 GMT go to thread Sorry to barge in but I was really intrigued by your results guys. I'm just starting to play around with ptgui and must say I'm very impressed, even tho I'm stitching just few photos of horizontal outdoor panoramas (still don't have panohead and fisheye lens, budgeting), the results are great. I was wondering, if either one of you would be kind enough to screen shot or step-by-step how did you straighten it so well ? I have been trying for last 20 minutes and I'm no near such results :P I'm really new and this and went through the manuals but it's rather general and the sample attached "straighten a panorama" kind of do for what I'm playing with now but not the kind of images I see here. Could you please spare a minute to explain how did you set the program to get it done ? Thank you very much for your time. regards Sebastian alert moderator