[P2VR 3 B2] Multi-res mid-size Flash panos

[Judy-A]

Source equirectangular images are about 9800 pixels wide. My goal is to try to maintain the detail of my original images at fullscreen on a 1920x1200 pixel display.

With previous P2VR versions, single-res output at 90% quality would output a SWF file of about 12 MB, too slow-loading for the average user.

The following are panos made with P2VR 3.0 beta 2.

Version 1:
http://www.judyarndt.ca/moraine_june201 ... e_jay.html

I was hoping small 300-pixel embedded cube faces could serve as a preview and 2400-pixel cube faces (96 tiles at 600 pixels square) would download as needed. It looks like that won't work smoothly on slower networks.

Version 2:
http://www.judyarndt.ca/moraine_june201 ... _jay2.html

Version 2 has the addition of intermediate-size tiles. See settings in attached screen shot.

moraine_jay2_settings.jpg (40.35 KiB) Viewed 4267 times

I'm seeing jerkiness when panning quickly.

If someone could compare the download speed and display quality of these two versions, I'd be grateful.

I you can suggest better settings for my purpose, I'm interested.

Three other panos using the Version 1 settings are in this gallery:
http://www.judyarndt.ca/galleries/morai ... e2010.html

Judy Arndt

[Wim.Koornneef]

Hello Judy,

I did some similar tests with multi-res panos and Pano2VR 3 beta2 and I found out that using the smallest tile size is not adding anything to the viewing experience because the flash player only shows the tiles that matches the zoom setting and monitor resolution.

For learning purposes I suggest that you color all tiles that contain the same object (only embed the smallest resolution in the flash pano, those tile(s) with the object will not be colored).
When you open the flash pano and zoom in and out with the object in the center of the screen, the color of the tiles makes clear which level is showed.
When you resize the player or browser window you can see that the level that is showed will also change.
This simple test makes clear that very small tiles don't serve any purpose on a standard computer monitor.

I suggest that you make at most 3 levels for your mid-size panos, f.e with tiles of 2800/2100/1400 px and a level tile size of 350 px.
The size jump between the levels is approx. half of the default of Pano2VR so each level is 2x larger/smaller then neighbouring level while the default size jump is 4x.
A smaller size jump between the levels will result in a better image quality at the transition to the next level.
Add only more (smaller) levels when you also want to serve mobile devices.

When the tiles of the 1400 px level are embedded and the other two levels are loaded at startup then the download time to get the pano on screen is short(*) and because the loading of the tiles is going on until the pano is fully loaded the viewing experience when panning will be much better.
Of course these settings are only suited for mid-size panos.

(*) imo the only advantage for using multi-res for mid-size panos is the short initial download time to get a pano on screen.

Success,
Wim

[Judy-A]

Thanks Wim, I tried some of your suggestions. Colorizing some tile levels was very helpful.

I think I've found a temporary workaround for the lack of preview in multi-res output, at least in medium sized panos.

1. Embed only an extremely low cube face size in the SWF file. This serves as the 'preview'. It is forced to load, even if the browser window is large.
2. Set a very high switch bias. This prevents the 'preview' tiles from displaying again, even if the window is small.

Version 3:
http://www.judyarndt.ca/moraine_june201 ... _jay3.html

Here are the setting used.

moraine_jay3_settings.jpg (44.68 KiB) Viewed 4228 times

I'd appreciate your opinions on whether or not this is workable.

Judy

[Wim.Koornneef]

Hello Judy,

I tried it on a 1440x900 px monitor and the workaround with a very small tile size for level 1 and a high bias setting seems to work fine.
The step between level 3 and 4 is well choosen, there is no visible transition between the levels when zooming in and out or when resizing the window size.
Am I right that you reserve level 2 just for mobile devices ?

Wim

[smooth]

Hi Judy,

It would appear to be a realistic work around for a preview track until Thomas implements it to work as we have requested.
Your panorama shows fine in my testings with the following exceptions.

1. Zoom in is limited too much and makes the use of multi-res pretty pointless. I would allow more minimum FOV zoom setting. (Try and match that of 100% of the image).
2. I would restrict maximum FOV zoom to meet that of the starting (default) FOV setting. Or at the very least have a return to home button to reset it. Currently you can zoom backwards more than forwards from your default FOV setting.
3. (Nothing to do with Pano2VR) The ghosting of the HDR is not a good look. Especially in the blue of the sky where you can see a halo effect. Personally I don't think the HDR is doing much for the scene, but then again I haven't seen the originals. Maybe exclude the sky from the process.

Still, beautiful scene. You are lucky to have such wonderful scenery to photograph.

Regards, Smooth

[Judy-A]

I tried it on a 1440x900 px monitor and the workaround with a very small tile size for level 1 and a high bias setting seems to work fine.
The step between level 3 and 4 is well choosen, there is no visible transition between the levels when zooming in and out or when resizing the window size.
Am I right that you reserve level 2 just for mobile devices ?

Thanks so much for testing, Wim.

Level 2 (800 width) was necessary to hold the 24-width level from displaying when the browser window was around 350 pixels high.

With my landscape panos, I don't feel much urgency to cater to the mobile market. I'm not selling houses or promoting eating and drinking establishments. Maybe when P2VR3 is finished, I'll produce some alternate output for iPad viewing.

I fired up an old G4 iBook here, updated the Flash Player to 10.1. The display of the multi-res panos was just terrible. It was slow loading and extremely jerky when panned. My single-res panos displayed a bit slowly but smoothly.

It would be shame to shut out people on older machines or slower networks. I've replace the panos linked from my web pages to traditional single-res panos. Test versions 2 and 3, linked in the posts above, are still online.

Judy

[Judy-A]

1. Zoom in is limited too much and makes the use of multi-res pretty pointless. I would allow more minimum FOV zoom setting. (Try and match that of 100% of the image).
2. I would restrict maximum FOV zoom to meet that of the starting (default) FOV setting. Or at the very least have a return to home button to reset it. Currently you can zoom backwards more than forwards from your default FOV setting.

Smooth, your testing and advice is much appreciated. Thank you.

I wish P2VR would implement a zoom ratio that didn't rely on FOV but on image-pixel to browser-pixel ratio. When I view my pano in a maximized browser window on 1920x1200 display, my minimum zoom of 40 matches my source image. On smaller-height windows, there's no way to increase the FOV.

3. (Nothing to do with Pano2VR) The ghosting of the HDR is not a good look. Especially in the blue of the sky where you can see a halo effect. Personally I don't think the HDR is doing much for the scene, but then again I haven't seen the originals. Maybe exclude the sky from the process.

HDR halos. I know they're a problem. There's at least a 5-stop difference between the detail in the snow-capped mountains and the shadow detail. Swaying branches prevent me from merging bracketed shots.

Photomatix Pro 4 can't handle the CA from the Samyang 8mm fisheye NEF images. Capture NX2 corrects the CA nicely, but it's D-Lighting adjustments produces flat images on these sets. Trying to keep detail in both snow and shadows, I've processed these photos numerous ways, every one of them imperfect. I've resorted to pseudo-HDR which produces murky skies. Still struggling. Still learning.

Judy