What kind of viewer

[scab5679]

Hello everyone!

This is my first post here. And of course I have a question.

First here is the situation:
I'm using PurePlayer Pro (java) at the moment, but it seems like that the flash players are
getting to the same level as java players.
Since I do my code by hand, I'd move to a player that uses .xml files as parameters (is all
player like that?).

I'd like to stay away from flash as much as I can for first, but I'd like to be able to
implement flash functions into my tours when I get to know how to.

So
What panorama player would you recommend?
(actually I've found this: http://flashpanoramas.com/player/ what is your opinion?)

is it like how I see it that flash has more feature (not one specific player, but in general)

Thank all of you
Csaba

and one more thing: I'd be sick if one thing would not be compatible with a browser/OS,
but I guess you are too :)

[Erik Krause]

On Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 13:31, scab5679 wrote:

> So
> What panorama player would you recommend?
> (actually I've found this: http://flashpanoramas.com/player/ what is your opinion?)

Seems as if this is the most advanced and most used one, but there
are others. If you want an all in one solution, perhaps pano2vr is
the best choice. It takes your images and outputs a flash SWF file
that contains both the viewer and the image data including hotspots
etc. -> http://www.pano2vr.com

Another choice would be krpano, which features multi-resolution
panoramas with dynamic loading. This is particularily useful if you
want to load a small version first and then seamlessly switch to
fullscreen viewing and allow deep zoom in. krpano is developing
rapidly and Klaus Reinfeld, the developer, is pretty responsive.
-> http://www.krpano.com

> is it like how I see it that flash has more feature (not one specific
> player, but in general)

Flash doesn't suffer from the java memory limitation which prevents
the display of high resolution fullscreen panoramas.

> and one more thing: I'd be sick if one thing would not be compatible
> with a browser/OS, but I guess you are too :)

I think flash works with more browser/OS combinations than any other
viewer technology, and on windows certainly more computers have flash
installed than java...

best regards
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de

[Lars O. Grobe]

>> What panorama player would you recommend?
>>    
While most will recommend something based on Java or Flash, which seams
to be very easy to create and plays on most clients, I will add another
option here. You can map you pano on a cube or cylinder and save that as
x3d or vrml, which can be displayed in all compatible players than. This
technique was already supported in the old panotools days, but (to my
regret) is not available as a simple export option in Hugin today.

Even if it seams to be an overkill to put a panorama into a 3d scene -
this is the only way to save a pano in a way that it is contained in an
industry standard format, independent of a specific player, and thus
displayable also ten or twenty years later. So for large projects, this
is a good technology base to build on. For a small web-site, it still
may be easier just to rewrite the files when changes in java, flash or
whatever arise or a new player appears.

CU Lars.

[Bernhard Vogl-2]

Regarding the compatibility, Flash-based viewers are the best choice: They run on all 3 major platforms (Linux, Windows, Mac) without problems. Quality is is not the best of all viewers but already reached the top class.

Just if not mentioned by someone else: The Panotools-Wiki has a nice overview:
http://wiki.panotools.org/Panorama_Viewers

Best regards
Bernhard