Re-generation of tiles

[ArkiTonio]

Hi.
In v. 4.5.X one could avoid generating tiles if yet present, useful when only retouching the skin, for example, and with very large panos: this was done by leaving the checkbox "Generate Files" empty in the Multiresolution tab, in HTML5 Output.
Now, in v. 5.X, this feature has become automatic: the user doesn't need any more to inform the program if and when re-generating the tiles; Pano2VR knows itself if re-generation of tiles is needed.
The question is: how can this be done? What and where the program looks for to understand if tiles have to be recreated or not?...

[Hopki]

Hi,
All files are time stamped.
So if you had 10 panos and then added a patch to number 8, the 8th pano would then be rendered. If you want to rerender all of them then just click the bin button. This empties the output folder.
Regards,
Hopki

[ArkiTonio]

All files are time stamped.

Hi, Martin.
What do you mean? How are they timestamped? How does it work?

[soulbrother]

? How are they timestamped? How does it work?

Easy: Each time a file is created and written to your harddisk, the OS automatically saved the date and time of the file.
This info can be used for backup-software-tools or also for pano2vr, to know, if there was any modification in the meanwile, that is "worth" to save it and to overwrite the file...

[ArkiTonio]

Each time a file is created and written to your harddisk, the OS automatically saved the date and time of the file

soulbrother, I know, of course, that each file on my hard-disk has its own date and time of creation/modification/access... but I'm not sure Martin intended that, speaking of "timestamp"...
There should be some other info hidden somewhere...
Anyway imagine this situation: I generate some hi-res panos with many levels, therefore with hundreds or thousands of tiles each one, say 10 panos in a tour and 20000 tiles, and that the entire process takes hours to complete; then I retouch some tiles of some panos for any reason, for example to sharpen or blur a detail or a zone in the scene, to lighten or darken some areas etc.; then I realize I have to retouch the skin, for some reason, and therefore recreate only the HTML/XML files of the tour, without regenerating the entire tour and tiles... wasting hours of work and losing those modifications I just made...
How can I do?
Martin, you said I coud empty the folder to recreate all the tiles, but my need is exactly the opposite: I wish to avoid the regeneration of the tiles, and that checkbox was so useful for this purpose...
Why has it been removed? Couldn't it be made available again?

[Laurent B]

Hello,
If you make a modification in a tower only that if will be regenerate but not other one. If you want égénérer all the towers click on ALT (option) + the wheel notched.
(Pano2vr 5.1 beta pro)

[ArkiTonio]

… a tower…

A tower?!...

… (Pano2vr 5.1 beta pro)

Well, I was trying v. 5.0.3 pro (on a 4 node tour).

However I wish to avoid regenerating not only the entire tour, of course, but the single pano and every single tile I retouched. Is this possible?

[Hopki]

Hi,
To make clear Pano2VR generates tiles with a time stamp. If the time stop does not change the the tiles are not regenerated.
If a Pano is then patched or levelled then this changes the time stamp and this one pano will be regenerated.

The only thing I have found that can cause images to be regenerated where they have not been modified is if they are stored on a network drive, when logging in the path may change to the images.
Regards,
Hopki