Search…

X3 Photo Gallery Support Forums

Search…
 
User avatar
kowapa
Posts: 8
Joined: 07 Apr 2016, 06:27

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

15 Dec 2018, 12:10

I'm thinking what... Marzipano is free library, but you are using this library only for pro license. Fair enough? Not sure :) 
Hope there will be no updates for only pro license in future :/
:flag_ru: Всегда рад помочь. :flag_dk: Altid glad for hjælpe. :flag_lv: Vienmēr priecīgs palīdzēt. :flag_gb: Always happy to help.
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Topic Author
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

15 Dec 2018, 22:01

kowapa wrote:I'm thinking what... Marzipano is free library, but you are using this library only for pro license. Fair enough? Not sure :)
Thanks for the comment. Please allow me to be perfectly direct: Marzipano is a free Javascript library, just like jQuery and 100's of other javascript's used in commercial projects. Furthermore, Marzipano themselves are of course owned by Google, allowing them to work on open-source projects, and I'm sure Google will reap their rewards in their own way. Then, if you check the Marzipano link, there is no "gallery app" of course, and their default "export" interface is limited and not too elegant. I could say, feel free to use Marzipano itself, but you will not end up with anything remotely close to what we have built into X3, which adds brand new interface and automated support for three panorama types ... Something you will probably only find in "export"-based panorama tools currently. Furthermore, you have other panorama tools like KRPano and PTGui, which already cost more than X3, and are all "export" based.

It seems perhaps you might have mistaken Marzipano for a "plugin" that you can just drop into a website. I wonder why a plugin for Marzipano doesn't even exist for Wordpress yet? I doubt anyone will make that for free.

A huge effort (several months) was put into the X3 panorama plugin, and I am not ashamed to offer it as a pro plugin. Without anyone interested in the PRO license, we would struggle to continue working X3 in the first place. If there are no differences between the licenses, what would be the selling point?

It was already noted a long time ago on our buy page that the panorama plugin (and a few other plugins) would be for X3 PRO only:
Image

I understand that the PRO upgrade fee $65.00 can be expensive for many ... Your options:
  • You can still use the X3 panorama plugin with PRIVATE license, but you are limited to adding panorama's to your custom content. See the bottom of my original post for more info.
  • You can use Marzipano for free, although it's not really comparable. You can even open an exported Marzipano project in an X3 popup from within your X3 website.
  • For those who really like X3 PRO features, appreciate the work behind them, and want to support us, can consider upgrading to X3 PRO for $65.00.
I hope you don't take offense by my comments. I appreciate you feedback, and just wanted to be direct and clear.
 
User avatar
GeoPal
Experienced
Posts: 227
Joined: 20 Dec 2007, 12:56

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

16 Dec 2018, 02:50

Hi Karl,
I wondered if I try to upload 4k panorama that has GPS in exif will it show the map button like in the regular popup? It would be great and maybe useful to the viewers who wonder where this pano was taken.
Best, G
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Topic Author
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

16 Dec 2018, 04:47

GeoPal wrote:I wondered if I try to upload 4k panorama that has GPS in exif will it show the map button like in the regular popup? It would be great and maybe useful to the viewers who wonder where this pano was taken.
This feature is in my "list". I am considering adding an "info" button, which when clicked, would open an overlay displaying title, description, EXIF data, and map-preview with link to extended map. In the regular image popup, these items are displayed directly in the interface (see image below) ... but for the panorama popup, I don't want to bloat the interface with these items, because the space should be reserved for interactivity, especially since the panorama always consumes 100% stage size.
Image
 
User avatar
EHRETic
Experienced
Posts: 116
Joined: 02 Feb 2011, 16:26

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

19 Dec 2018, 11:12

mjau-mjau wrote:It is not entirely clear to me if your images are 360/180 degrees SPHERICAL, or if they are ultra-high resolution non-spherical FLAT "gigapixel" images. I assume the latter. Can you please clarify?
Flat :-)
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Topic Author
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

19 Dec 2018, 12:09

EHRETic wrote:Flat :-)
Ok :thumbsup:
EHRETic wrote:Would "Flat" work with one single JPG image ?
Unfortunately no. Flat "gigapixel" images need to be sliced into hundreds of "bite sized" pieces (tiles) from a tool like KRpano or PTGui. As you will find in our flat demo, it loads tiles into view as you pan/zoom.

This is half the point of having a "viewer" for gigapixel images in the first place, because it is a very technical operation, that progressively loads tiles into view from an exported multi-file gigapixel project. Browsers simply don't support loading single-file images of this resolution, and even if they could, it would be impractical because it wouldn't be able to display the image progressively, and it would take ages to load.

Out of the three formats X3 supports, equirect and cube (both spherical) are not too hard to implement. Equirect is a single-file source format (but cannot be more than 8192 px wide), while cube (multi-file) supports higher-resolutions and can be exported for free in Marzipano Tool.

Flat gigapixel format however must be exported from a 3rd party tool, and I am not currently aware of any FREE tools for this (PTGui and KRPano are not free). We added support for Flat "because we could", but for this format, you depend on a 3rd party tool to export your flat gigapixel image into tiles, because this is not a task X3 can do for you unfortunately.

I found a link here, although I have no experience in exporting for flat (I tried KRPano demo, which adds watermark).
https://beebom.com/photo-stitching-software/

I'm sure @GeoPal and @Martin have more knowledge about this than me.
 
User avatar
Martin
Experienced
Posts: 651
Joined: 30 Jan 2011, 23:24

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

19 Dec 2018, 12:47

mjau-mjau wrote: I'm sure @GeoPal and @Martin have more knowledge about this than me.
Hmm.. don’t be sure about me...
I’m the equirectangular guy :)
 
User avatar
GeoPal
Experienced
Posts: 227
Joined: 20 Dec 2007, 12:56

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

19 Dec 2018, 16:32

Ok...
Pano2VR and krpano can both make tiles and have the player/viewer that loads them and displays them.
There are other (free) players, which can load tiles, the problem is the tile generation.
Example
GigaPX2Pano converts your gigapixel images into a set of small image files compatible with the following browser viewers: PanoJS3OpenZoomZoomify and Deep Zoom
GigaPX2Pano is relatively inexpensive, compared to krpano and Pano2VR (pro). I haven't looked at any other options, because I own both Pano2VR and krpano.
Also, making tiles out of already assembled panorama has nothing to do with stitching the large/gigapixel panorama (for which there are several freeware options as Karl already noted).
If someone knows of such software for tiling big images I would also be interested, as I have searched and found none (freeware)- only GigaPX2Pano can output up to 1.0 gigapixel for free.
If I can help convert some big images for somebody, drop me a line. Will be my pleasure.
Best, G
 
User avatar
EHRETic
Experienced
Posts: 116
Joined: 02 Feb 2011, 16:26

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

20 Dec 2018, 05:11

mjau-mjau wrote:Flat gigapixel format however must be exported from a 3rd party tool, and I am not currently aware of any FREE tools for this (PTGui and KRPano are not free). We added support for Flat "because we could", but for this format, you depend on a 3rd party tool to export your flat gigapixel image into tiles, because this is not a task X3 can do for you unfortunately.
Well I've Gigapano (company stopped now) and Lightroom to stitch images. I'm wondering what are the possibilities there :-)
PS : I've update the license... do you have to do something on your side (still shows private) ?
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Topic Author
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

20 Dec 2018, 08:26

EHRETic wrote:PS : I've update the license... do you have to do something on your side (still shows private) ?
What domain are you looking at? Your upgrade was made for order ID 52361369, which is linked to domain tiltandstreet .com. Perhaps you meant to upgrade order ID 52360455 / ehretic .com?
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Topic Author
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

20 Dec 2018, 08:44

As noted by @GeoPal, GigaPX2Pano offers a free tile export tool for gigapixel images. The free version is limited to 1 gigapixel (for example 40000 px X 25000 px), which should suffice for basic usage. I haven't tried to export for X3 yet, but it should work nicely when configured.
http://www.gigapxtools.com/gigapx2pano.php

I will soon open a new forum for X3 "panorama plugin".
 
User avatar
GeoPal
Experienced
Posts: 227
Joined: 20 Dec 2007, 12:56

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

21 Dec 2018, 04:07

Ok, this is a test for 8k jpgs, around 5 mb each. Works on windows and Android fine- just upload the equirect and all set. I will test multires and single res cube files to see how it feels on mobile.
Barcelona bay sunrise walk
Best, G
edit:
Krpano single level output from 5.12Mb file - 15 files, 3.90 Mb
Krpano multilevel output from 5.12 Mb file - 309 files, 12 Mb
p.s. krpano has a nice feature- you can have centralized player files and configure the xml to the path of the player, so you can update very fast a new version of the player and upload less files on the server- thus you don't need a dedicated player for each of the hundreds of panos. For now the quickest way is upload 8k equirectangular image. My only concern is the speed of loading the pano on mobile connections. Balance is never easy :)
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Topic Author
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

21 Dec 2018, 08:42

GeoPal wrote:Ok, this is a test for 8k jpgs, around 5 mb each. Works on windows and Android fine- just upload the equirect and all set. I will test multires and single res cube files to see how it feels on mobile.
Barcelona bay sunrise walk
Cool. Works great on Mac. Also, I see your server has no problems in resizing 8192 px images, so it works nicely on devices that only support 4096 px also. Image resized to 4096 on your server ~2.2MB:
panomagic.eu/render/w4096/360/Barcelona/b18b_8.jpg
GeoPal wrote:Krpano single level output from 5.12Mb file - 15 files, 3.90 Mb
Krpano multilevel output from 5.12 Mb file - 309 files, 12 Mb
Cool, although these figures don't mean much to me. You can't really "save space" for any kind of panoramas, unless you use lower resolution source. If it's about amount of files, clearly equirect is the winner.
GeoPal wrote:p.s. krpano has a nice feature- you can have centralized player files and configure the xml to the path of the player, so you can update very fast a new version of the player and upload less files on the server- thus you don't need a dedicated player for each of the hundreds of panos.
Loading the XML itself would require at least PHP+XML before it can even read any values from the XML, in which case perhaps it could load "javascript" from another path. But then, why not just set the app to always load latest version from CDN like X3 does? You would still need to manually edit XML file for all of your projects if you update the "player" in a single location. Of course, panoramas added to X3 would all be updated automatically when you update X3. Also, for the panorama "app" we spoke of, you can use a single player to access different sources per url param ?file=equirect.jpg ?path=cube_path/ ?config=pano.json, so you would really only need one player in a single location.
GeoPal wrote:For now the quickest way is upload 8k equirectangular image. My only concern is the speed of loading the pano on mobile connections. Balance is never easy :)
If you want a single-level cube panorama of the same quality as an 8k equirect image, we are speaking 6 tiles X 2048/2048 px. Total file size of these tiles would be at least the same as the 8k equirect image (if same quality), although single files always load faster, because there is less requests/latency and better compression. Also, to fulfill a single field-of-view, 5 out of 6 tiles (left, center, right, top, bottom) would need to load anyway ... Thus, I don't see much advantage in terms of loading.

If you want optimal loading on all devices, multi-level cube is the clear winner. It would target a single level depending on screen abilities, and it would load images progressively, and it would only require perhaps 30-40% of the levels tiles to fulfill initial view.
 
User avatar
GeoPal
Experienced
Posts: 227
Joined: 20 Dec 2007, 12:56

Re: X3 Panorama Plugin [X3.26.0 Beta]

21 Dec 2018, 11:49

Nice to read your comments, Karl.
It doesn't matter for the xml config the place of the player- you just replace several files with the same name, no need to reconfigure hundreds of xml files. I think it might be possible to load the player from CDN, but since these files are 300kb, I don't see the point and might run into issues like the serverside config for gigapixel panos from CDN.
I put the numbers about file size and count so it is easier to compare - 1 file 5.12 mb equirect, 15 files single level cube faces 3.90 Mb, and 309 files 12 Mb multilevel cube faces. Maybe krpano has some compression in the config like 85% and that is why the file size for the single level cube faces is less than the original. I didn't know and count the time for reading the xml file, loading into the player etc communication and that is why I thought single level cube faces will load faster. Anyway. I like the result from 8k - looks like a winning strategy :)
 
Ruud de Soet
Experienced
Posts: 26
Joined: 11 Apr 2018, 09:42

Limitation viewing direction in Marzipano

03 Jan 2019, 04:41

First of all, I am a starter in panorama photography. With a 14mm lens and a panorama head, I make 360-180 degree panoramas. I make 2x7 photos and an air and ground photo. In PTGui Pro  I make the panorama but sometimes there are no control points in the sky or ground. The result will be a white circle in the upper or lower part of the panorama. The format must be 2: 1 so I can’t crop the panorama. Of course, I can do some actions in Photoshop (like logo) but I heard that the Marzipano tool has an option to  limit the viewing direction (up/down). This means that we can stop viewing before the upper and lower white circles. If Marzipano has this option it would be nice that X3 will support this.