virtual tour view settings

[RobM]

Hi All,

I'm trying to get a mapped virtual tour template set up, the first time I've actually got a proper handle on the tour setup in fact.
I've 9 panos all linked, each one has a couple of hotspots linking to the next and previous pano. I've seen that I can change the initial view settings via the action/modifiers tab in the skin editor but can I add a second pan/tilt/fov?

The specific setup I have is a stairwell. I can click a hotspot to go upstairs or click another to go through to a room. If I return from the room the pan/tilt/fov is set correctly, as if I'm entering the stairwell from the room. However, if I come back down the stairs, the view isn't correct, it still displays the view as if I was coming from the room.
Essentially I need to be abe to enter a pano from several angles and each angle displaying the correct starting positon.

Any tips welcome,
Thanks. Rob.

[Hopki]

Hi
Have a look at this: http://gardengnomesoftware.com/wiki/Poi ... rtual_Tour
You will find lost of information like this in the User Guides, Tips and Knowledge base documents as well as the Tutorials.
Many hours have been put into these, so with a look.
Regards
Hopki

[RobM]

Readng and learning.
I can't seem to get a handle on the issue though.
If I have 3 hot spots that represent 3 panos. The middle pano can be entered from 2 directions but I want the transitioned view to represent the direction it was entered. It works one way as the default pano view is set in one direction but re-entering the romm from the other direction I end up looking in the direction I just came from rather than the way I'm going.

I must be almost there but I've got to get this sample done for a client so driving myself nuts. 2 panos linked is easy, trying to get 9 done so they all run in the right direction from all directions is a nightmare.
The examples I see on the tutorials and tips are all helpful, but they only show the linking of 2 panos..

[Hopki]

Hi
Each hotspot has a target text field, this is used to open the panorama set in the Url text field to open in the view set in here.
If you have three rooms you can enter the middle from from the left or right.

Once the text box with the placeholders $ap/$at/$ap is in the skin, just simply do the following.

Enter the middle room from the left room, turn so the door leading to the right room is facing you, facing the direction of travel. Make a note of the pan, tilt, FoV data (p/t/f)
Now open the p2vr file for the left room, in the hotspot that goes to the middle room enter the p/t/f data in the target text field.

Now back in the tour and in the right room, enter the middle room and turn and face the door that leads to the left room. Make a note of the p/t/f.
Open the right room project file and open the hotspot editor. now select the hotspot that leads to the middle room and enter the p/t/f for that hotspot.

Open the tour, starting from the left room click on the hotspot that points to the middle room. The middle room opens facing the door to the right.
Enter the right room, this will open with the default as you have not set any pointing from the middle room, only the left and right rooms.

So from the right room click the hotspot for the middle room and it will open facing the left door.
When you get the hang of this you can go around your tour just making notes for the relevant p/t/f and enter them when you have all the data.
Regards
Hopki

[RobM]

Thanks for the help here, That is exactly the setup I read in the help files and such.
I've just tried it again, word for word and still no joy. I think there must be some conflict somewhere that's resetting the view to it's original and default.


Should there be any info in the actions/modifiers box on the mouse-click - next panorama ? I've left those blank for now.

Going to stop looking for a mo as it's infuriating me. I have to get some other jobs out of the door right now and I'm just getting wound up here Must be something simple, but I'm obviously overlooking that simple something!
Will try from scratch with a new tour test to see if with blank settings I can get it to work.

[Hopki]

Hi
Try your self and make a simple project, see how far you get then post up the project so we can see where you are going wrong.
Then you will have something to work with.
Regards
Hopki

[BerndStefan]

Hi to all,

I put my question in this topic because I'm dealing as well with $ap, $at and $af:

I'm keeping all the values of all panos in a database and therefore I have to read them first out of the pano and copy them to a HTML-Form. To read them I inserted a container in a skin showing the wanted values in 3 text-boxes. Then I have to copy them manualy one by one and paste them in the correspondending text-boxes of my HTML-form on the same page - a boring job.

I assume that you use javascript to show the values inside the swf. If so it should be possible to "read" those values and display them directly in my HTML-form on the same page - changing simultaneously when I'm moving the pano around. Is there a way to do so? Or a different - maybe actionscript?

Any help will be apreciated.
Bernd

[Sharky]

I have two problems that I need to resolve regarding p/t/fv.

We produce the mutl-image tour for our client. The tours are hotspot and menu button linked. The client uses the image tours for record purposes, so using an on/off cross-hair and p/t/fv readout they go around the images noting items/areas within the buildings that require maintenance.

Problem a) A written report is created detailing the various defects. In the pdf version of the report I need to put links back to the relavant area in the pano. But the client does not want to have to open a pano and then have to navigate to the right place in the image, they want to go straight the correct p/t/fv on entry from the HTML link. And I certainly don't want to create a pano with a different entry point for every defect. It's almost as if I want to be able to pass the p/t/fv to the .swf when it's called from within the HTML. That way with just one pano I can have multiple p/t/fv entry points. Is this possible now? Or something for the future?

Problem b) From within the tour you can jump to any image using an image menu. The client wants it so that if you change the p/t/fv of any image to look at a particular defect and then you go and jump to another image, when you jump back to any previous the pano image must be where you left it and not for it to return to the default p/t/fv that the image comes in at. I know there are the normal variables that you can use, but it's as if I could do with being able to assign my own variables. That way as I leave an image I can store its p/t/fv to return to later. Which would be really useful for other stuff as well. Again, is this possible now? Or something for the future?

Mark

[BerndStefan]

Hi Mark,

a) You should consider to use a database to store your defects in. From this data you could create the PDF, the menue with the pictures of areas with defects in the start-pano and the hotspots for the defects in the detail-panos. So your start-pano contains only panos with defects and the detail-pano only hotspots pointing to the defect(s).

How to do?
Create a pano with menu and some hotspots and click in the HTML-TAB on Activate HTML-File and export all Pictures and Skins (I don't know the exact englisch texts because I'm using a german version). In the newly created html-file you see in the code all necessary lines of code you have to create on the fly with PHP or any other language, so the Pano contains only the necessary menues and / or hotspots. In your case the hotspots need no link, just the decription of the defect at this point.

b) To go back to the previous pano to the exact point where you left it, you have to read the pano and the correspondending $ap, $at and $af-values directly from the pano and store it in a session-variable to jump back to it.

But: If this is possible was my question directly above yours. So let's wait for an answer

Bye, Bernd

[Sharky]

Hi Bernd,

Thanks for the help.

I've done bit of a trial with a basic pano tour with only a few skin items but I can see from the .html file how it all hangs together with the .html file passing the info/variables to the pano player. This is definately the way forward for me with this project and will be great asset in producing other simlar dynamic tours.

I'm still a beginner at this. I take it the main body of the .html that passes the info. to the flash/panoplayer is Java Script? So if I need to expand my knowledge and to take this to the next level and need to get a book on Java Script? Unless you know a good website?

Thanks again for your help I'm really excited about where these dynamic .html's can take our work.

Regards, Mark

[BerndStefan]

Hi Mark,

you don't have manipulate the JavaScript; just make your HTML dynamic. I use ASP, but PHP i.e. would work as well. In the following block you see the dynamic parts very well in line 3, 9and 14:

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panorama = '<panorama>';
panorama += '<view fovmode="0">';
panorama += '<start pan="<% =RS1("panPan") %>" tilt="<% =RS1("panTilt") %>" fov="<% =RS1("panHfov") %>"/>';
panorama += '<min pan="0" tilt="-90" fov="5"/>';
panorama += '<max pan="360" tilt="90" fov="120"/>';
panorama += '</view>';
panorama += '<autorotate speed="0.050" delay="5.00" returntohorizon="1.000" onlyinfocus="0" startloaded="0" />';
panorama += '<display width="600" height="395" quality="9" changemotionquality="1" changestagequality="0" smoothing="1" fullscreenmenu="0" custommenutext="" custommenulink="" scalemode="stage" scaletofit="1" />';
panorama += <% =picturesFlash %>
panorama += '</input>';
panorama += '<userdata title="" description="" author="" datetime="" copyright="" source="" info="" comment="" />';
panorama += '<control sensitifity="8" simulatemass="1" lockedmouse="0" lockedkeyboard="0" lockedwheel="0" invertwheel="0" trapwheel="1" speedwheel="1" invertcontrol="0" />';
panorama += '<cursor ownonmovement="0" ownondefault="0" />';
panorama += <% =hotspotsFlash %>
panorama += '<qthotspots>';
panorama += '<label enabled="1" width="180" height="20" movement="1" textcolor="0x000000" background="1" backgroundcolor="0xffffff" border="1" bordercolor="0x000000" wordwrap="1" />';
panorama += '</qthotspots>';
panorama += '<transition enabled="0" type="crossdissolve" blendtime="1" zoomspeed="2" zoomfov="5" zoomin="1" zoomout="1" zoomoutpause="1" blendcolor="0x000000" />';
panorama += '</panorama>';

So I have only have one page to show all my panos:
In the third line I insert from a database-recordset RS1 the values of Pan, Tilt and Hfov. The are from my table tblPanos. In the same table is the directory (-> ordnerName) of the pictures for the Flash-Pano. So I can stitch together the following code:

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dim ordnerName
ordnerName = path & "/" & RS1("panSource")

dim picturesFlash
picturesFlash = "'<input width=""1000"" height=""1000"" leveltilesize=""1000"" levelbias=""0.4"" overlap=""1"" leveltileurl=""" & ordnerName & "_flash/c%c_l%r_%y_%x.jpg"" levelmemraw=""300"" levelmembmp=""200"" levelqueueraw=""20"" levelqueuebmp=""5"" >';" & VBCRLF
picturesFlash = picturesFlash & "	
panorama += '<level width=""1000"" height=""1000"" embed=""0"" preload=""0"" predecode=""0"" />';" & VBCRLF
picturesFlash = picturesFlash & "	
panorama += '<level width=""250"" height=""250"" embed=""1"" preview=""1"" />';"

This piece of Code is inserted in the panorama-block at line 9:

Code: Select all

panorama += <% =picturesFlash %>

The correspondending hotspots of the pano reside in the table tblHotSpot; so they can change independently of the pano-data. Even better: You can insert different hotspots in the same pano - depending to your needs. They will be genereated as above (but in a loop) and inserted by this piece of code:

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panorama += <% =hotspotsFlash %>

So your page shows the pano with the pictures from directory A and the hotspots B, C and D.
Hope this helps a bit.

Regards
Bernd

[Sharky]

H Bernd,

Thanks for all your help, I've had great results with the ideas you gave me. We can now change the PTZ when entering a pano, also add/delete/change the image and location of hotspots on the fly. GREAT!!!

At the moment though this is with the pano being driven externally. The final step would be able to clip a button in the pano and for it pass its current FTZ to an external source. This would be so that if someone finds a problem/fault within the room they can clip a "record fault" button and then type some text, which would be then added to the database.

Have you heard of anyone doing this? Is it even possible?

Many thanks again...

Mark