X3.27.1
X3.27.1 was released today with the following improvements to the panorama plugin:
1. Support for Krpano and Pano2VR config
X3 can now read
pano.xml config files exported from popular tools Krpano and Pano2VR. This means you don't need to manually configure "parameters" for flat panoramas if your folder already contains a pano.xml config file. X3 will check if this file exists, and then extract necessary information to correctly render the flat panorama in X3. For example:
- You have placeholder image myflatpano.jpg
- You have a folder _myflatpano
- You have config file _myflatpano/pano.xml
Done! No parameters required. The parameters that are automatically calculated from pano.xml are
tilesize,
levels and
url_format (with
zero_padding and
index_start calculated from the url_format). You can still use parameters if you want, in which case they will override parameters calculated from the pano.xml config. You may still wish to use other parameters like
path to point to the folder that contains the flat panorama, or to point to a remote path (CDN or different server).
Optionally, if your panorama tiles are stored on a remote PATH (CDN), you can upload a config xml file that matches the name of the placeholder image, for example
myflatpano.jpg =>
myflatpano.xml. You would then simply use parameter
path=http://remotehost.com/flat/pano.
2. Extensive url_format
The
url_format parameter (used for flat panorama's) now supports formats directly from Krpano and Pano2VR. For example, Krpano format "pano.tiles/l1/%00v/l1_%00v_%00h.jpg" will automatically convert to "pano.tiles/{z}/{y}/{z}_{y}_{x}.jpg" while Pano2VR format "tiles/project/cf_%c/l_%l/c_%x/tile_%y.jpg" will automatically convert to "tiles/project/cf_0/l_{z}/c_{x}/tile_{y}.jpg". This means you no longer need to figure out the url_format yourself. Furthermore,
index_start and
zero_padding parameters are now calculated from the
url_format, so these parameters are no longer required.
3. zero_padding and index_start deprecated
The
zero_padding and
index_start parameters are no longer used since their values are now automatically extracted from the
url_format. The parameters are still available, in case you are adding panoramas exported from unknown tools, and X3 still uses their values internally. Furthermore,
default values for these parameters has been set to
0 ... The only reason these parameters existed in the first place, was to support Krpano, which uses an unknown amount of 00's in url counters, and starts level indexing at 1 (instead of 0). Pano2VR doesn't use zero's to pad counters, and level indexing starts at 0, which should be the default.
PS! If you have already added Krpano projects, and there is no pano.xml file, and you did not apply index_start and zero_padding, you may now need to apply them.
4. Automatic support for panorama folder paths that start with _underscore
X3 will now automatically match placeholder images with folders that start with _underscore. For example, if you have placeholder image
mypano.jpg, X3 will check if directory
/_mypano/ exists, and assume it is the path for your multi-res FLAT or CUBE panorama (unless you set a custom path).
5. Flat pin levels
To remedy a low level of caching and pinning tiles for flat panoramas
[see post], we have added an option
pin_levels [screenshot]. By default,
[pin_levels=2] TWO levels (level 0 and 1) are now pinned and preloaded into texture memory when the flat panorama starts. This will make sure that at least second level is available as fallback when navigating the panorama at higher zoom. Depending on the width of your levels, you might consider setting pin_levels=3. From docs:
X3 Docs wrote:The number of levels to preload into panorama texture. Pinned levels will always remain in memory as fallback while loading higher level tiles, and will not be evicted. By default, TWO levels are preloaded.
Be careful with this setting. If you attempt to preload too many levels, you could force a visitor to start loading several 100 MB of files, which will be awfully slow obviously.
pin_levels can be assigned directly from a panorama's parameters:
6. Fixed so that buttons and links used in panorama captions are clickable from the panorama gallery layout
[see post].
7. Fixed pano EXIF background color for all X3 skins
[see post].