Recommendation for PanoViewer Open Source Software

[mike7]

Hello,
I am thinking about adding a panoramic viewer to my site, which will
hopefully mean the pano viewer (and the server it sits on) will get
pretty heavy usage. Can some kind soul out there suggest their top 2
favorite open source solutions and provide a brief explanation of why
these are their favorites?

I am admittedly a complete and total pano newbie, so I would truly
appreciate any guidance you might provide on what makes a good pano
viewer good.

many thanks in advance.

Best Regards,
Mike

[mike7]

[benoit...@gmail.com]

Hello Mike, is "open source" an absolute requirement ?

If not, you should take a look at this : http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/HDView.htm

[Thomas Steiner]

> Hello Mike, is "open source" an absolute requirement ?
>
> If not, you should take a look at this : http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/HDView.htm

I got a "Sorry the HD View Beta is not supported on this platform.
Must be Internet Explorer or Firefox on Windows XP, Server 2003, or
Vista."
I use Ubuntu. :(
Thomas

[Matt Wronkiewicz]

> I am thinking about adding a panoramic viewer to my site, which will
> hopefully mean the pano viewer (and the server it sits on) will get
> pretty heavy usage. Can some kind soul out there suggest their top 2
> favorite open source solutions and provide a brief explanation of why
> these are their favorites?

I set up a web page for my panoramas <http://www.wronkiewicz.net/qtvr/
>, which I have tested with Firefox on Linux. The panoramas are coded
as nested object tags. The two outer tags direct the browser to load
Quicktime. The inner tag loads PTViewer, a Java applet. PTViewer has
some limitations. The browser I tested wouldn't load a panorama much
larger than 3000x1500, and I couldn't get it to load a cubic mov. For
these reasons I have to upload in two different formats. Since
PTViewer is open source, it might be possible to fix these
limitations.

Matt

[Carl von Einem]

In this case I think it's not only a viewer problem but also a
limitation of the JVM, AFAIK PTViewer on Mac OS X clients is even more
limited than on other platforms.

Carl

[Matt Wronkiewicz]

> In this case I think it's not only a viewer problem but also a
> limitation of the JVM, AFAIK PTViewer on Mac OS X clients is even more
> limited than on other platforms.

Yes, PTViewer is limited by the RAM allocated by the JVM. It might be
possible to fix PTViewer so it requires less RAM, thus increasing the
maximum size of the panorama. However, on my site, the panoramas are
displayed by Quicktime if it is installed, which should almost always
be the case on Mac OS X.

Matt

[Erik Krause]

On Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 8:31, Matt Wronkiewicz wrote:

> The inner tag loads PTViewer, a Java applet. PTViewer has
> some limitations. The browser I tested wouldn't load a panorama much
> larger than 3000x1500, and I couldn't get it to load a cubic mov. For
> these reasons I have to upload in two different formats. Since
> PTViewer is open source, it might be possible to fix these
> limitations

First of all you should use a recent version of PTViewer:
http://www.fsoft.it/panorama/PTViewer.htm
Next there is a limitation that can't be fixed, unless you allow the
JVM to use more memory:
http://www.fsoft.it/panorama/PTViewer/LargePanos.htm

best regards

--
http://www.erik-krause.de

[Yuv]

Hello Mike,

On Aug 21, 12:53 am, mike7 <mikeall...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Can some kind soul out there suggest their top 2
> favorite open source solutions and provide a brief explanation of why
> these are their favorites?

I'll answer your question first and will then explain why the answer
is not completely relevant and why an open source viewers does not
matter as much as using proper, openly documented standard formats.

My top two favorites are http://freepv.sf.net/ and ptviewer which has
already been mentioned in this thread with link to a recent Fulvio
Senore's version.

ptviewer is the best of all Java based players. Unfortunately Java
puts limits on it, particularly in terms of panorama size. It has the
best static image quality (interpolation) and easy to code hotspots.

FreePV is my favorite because it plays VR content natively in Linux. A
port to Windows and OSX might appear at some point, though it is quite
irrelevant for now since the content (QTVR and SPi-V panoramas) to
which FreePV gives access is already available to Win and OSX users
through QuickTime and Shockwave.

> I am admittedly a complete and total pano newbie, so I would truly
> appreciate any guidance you might provide on what makes a good pano
> viewer good.

the first thing that makes a pano viewer good is how wide its audience
is. With audiences above 90%, Flash and Java based panoramas are
excellent on that count. Shockwave and QuickTime lag behind, at about
60%.

next, though IMO as important, is the playing of standard formats.
ptviewer plays JPG panoramas, as does flashpanoramas.com and SPi-V.
This is why those formats (though in reverse order) are my favorites.

I produce the JPG panoramas themselves with OpenSource tools such as
hugin and panotools. My audience can download for free Java/Flash/
Shockwave/QuickTime even if they are not OpenSource. When the
OpenSource viewer become competitive, all I have to do is change the
HTML wrapper to adopt them. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, none of
the currently existing OpenSource plugins are good enough to display
panoramas. Totem shows a black screen when displaying QTVR and gnash
can't play any of the Flash panoramas out there.

But again, who cares? FreePV gives access to SPi-V content to Linux
users and OSX / Windows users can use the original Shockwave for that.

Yuv

[Hubert Figuiere]

Just FYI.

> Totem shows a black screen when displaying QTVR and

This is bug:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=351183
It is a limitation fo gstreamer. Not sure anybody is working on that.

> gnash
> can't play any of the Flash panoramas out there.

That would be interesting to see how much is missing. The difficulty
actually depend of the version of Flash used by the panorama "applet".
swfdec also can be tested.

Hub

[mike7]

Hello,
Thanks for all the reply. In reading about http://freepv.sf.net/ and
ptviewer, it sounds like these will probably work fine for what we
have in mind. Does anyone see any reason why these viewers would not
be appropriate choices or perhaps why one would be better than the
other for the building services like those shown on these two
sites ??? :
* http://www.pixilink.com/tours1/332wood/ or
* http://www.obeo.com/Public/Viewer/Default.aspx?ID=186577

Many thanks, again.

Cheers,
Mike