Pano2VR beta4 release

Q&A about the latest versions
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Wim.Koornneef
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Hello Thomas,

First I wish you and your lady a very good 2008 and I hope we can talk and drink a beer in good health in Prague.

Now a less important issue.
The new beta is capable of handling video timelapse streams and that is a nice option.
At this moment I show timelapse panorama's with SPi-V and it's special timelapse extension. Although this works fine it only runs automaticly and it lacks the option to manually stop, go back or go forward in time.

Q) Is there any way I can use the new beta for showing timelapse panoramas made of series of equirectangulars ?
(example: http://tinyurl.com/293jdf )
If not, is there a possibility to easely create the videostream

All the best,

Wim

------------------------------------------------------
EDIT:

The SPi-V timelapse in the link above is made of equirectangulars that are created with PTGui without the use of the Virtual Point technology.
The equirectangulars for the MP4 based timelapse (link below) are created with Virtual Point technology, the result is much better, no more jumping mountains ;-)

http://tinyurl.com/3rcou2

Both types of timelapse panos requiers a longer download/process time then usual, so please be patient when little or nothing seems to happen.

Wim
Last edited by Wim.Koornneef on Tue Jul 01, 2008 10:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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thomas
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Wim.Koornneef wrote:First I wish you and your lady a very good 2008 and I hope we can talk and drink a beer in good health in Prague.
I wish you and Margriet the same and I am definitely looking forward to drink a beer (or two) in Praque together.
Now a less important issue.
The new beta is capable of handling video timelapse streams and that is a nice option.
At this moment I show timelapse panorama's with SPi-V and it's special timelapse extension. Although this works fine it only runs automaticly and it lacks the option to manually stop, go back or go forward in time.

Q) Is there any way I can use the new beta for showing timelapse panoramas made of series of equirectangulars ?
(example: http://tinyurl.com/293jdf )
If not, is there a possibility to easely create the videostream
Yes this is possible and the process is documented in http://gardengnomesoftware.com/wiki/Pano2VR_-_Video . For now I don't plan to integrate more steps into Pano2VR because I want to bring it out of beta first and video is a complicated topic by its own. There is already 3rd party software out there that is able to deal with it. I hope you don't find it too complicated and if so please let us know where the problems are so that I can improve the documentation.
MfG, Thomas
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Wim.Koornneef
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Hello Thomas,
thomas wrote:I hope you don't find it too complicated and if so please let us know where the problems are so that I can improve the documentation.
Thanks for your offer for extra help.
Indeed I need some extra info.
For some reason the movie will not display in the browsers window so obviously I am doing something wrong.

This is what I did:

1) I converted my equirectangulars to the maximum size for the flash 3x2 format (2880 width)
2) then I imported all images (as a movie image serie with 2 images/second) in QTPro.
3) When exporting the movie I had several format options but none of them is with an ".flv" extension.
The closest is a movie with ".flc" extension so I used this one (filename "video.flc")
4) I copied and pasted your example code without altering a single character into the body of a HTML file.
5) I downloaded the "p2q_embed_object.js" file from the link below the example script
6) I renamed the extension of the video file into ".flv"
7) I put all files in a single folder and I tried to view the movie.

I guess that I don't have the right output choosen in QTPro but I also I wonder why there is a filename "test.swf" in the script example, has this something to do with the malfunction ?
BTW, is there a possibility to get a movie controller in the time lapse ?

Thomas thanks for your help.

Best,

Wim
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hum@no.id
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Hi and HNY again:)

I want to voice its modest opinion... I am a lucky in possibility of the quick advancement BETA's... Last possibilities exist to be (video for full texture),
buuuuut, you well know that similar experiences it was used QTVR (with d-polar FE), and did not gain much demand or fresh presentation of Panocco (Japan) with full texture FLV. This possible whole 2% from market... I do not think that this is a strategic correct intellectual investment...

Possible partial introduction videoframe... like a module animation (TV screen, clock and bla-bla-bla etc.) - are in priority, with use tools placement of these modules in loop-mode.

And in the same way big advantage to final-make fully human interface - last stage to completeness... CURSOR POINTERS... hih:) sory for multisay... аbout... This like - highway without road pointers (signs) - NONSENSE... many dev's forget about this...

But video (?)... video this verywell!, muchwell!:))))))
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thomas
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Wim.Koornneef wrote: 3) When exporting the movie I had several format options but none of them is with an ".flv" extension.
The closest is a movie with ".flc" extension so I used this one (filename "video.flc")
Here is the first bug. You need to create a Flash video, flc is something else. There are many converters out there starting from free (FFmpeg) to Flash Professional and ending with Premier, Final Cut or After Effects.
I guess that I don't have the right output choosen in QTPro but I also I wonder why there is a filename "test.swf" in the script example, has this something to do with the malfunction ?
BTW, is there a possibility to get a movie controller in the time lapse ?
You need a regular panorama (where you can include controllers, etc) as a host for the video. This is the "test.swf" file in the example, but for your application you can just create a low res flash panorama where you later "inject" the video with the HTML code.
MfG, Thomas
bm
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Hi

I just bought a ladybug 2 and I have just 10 days to learn everything before I go on a 6 month trip around the world with it...

http://www.vrh2.com/videowarp/cubicvid.html

that's my progress page, now I want to put these movies up in flash also.

Last time I used flash it was at 4.0 and I'm flailind badly here. I exported the movie as image sequence but I can only get 1 frame at a time into pano2Vr.. I'm on a macbook pro, how do I select all, (shift and clicking many files doesnt work...) to get them all to import, or do I have to do 1 frame at a time?

after I opened 1 frame I was able to save it as 3*2 special, but next step...not yet..
will get on this tomorrow. Now I sleep.
fred
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mmm, So how much is a Ladybug 2.
I did a google and found the maker but no price unless you filled out a really long form???

Anyone got some samples to view?
bm
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You can see a demo of the functionality here:
http://gg-sw.com/pano2vr_sample.php?demo=video
um the first example Thomas put up was the demo for the ladybug2.

They cost $10,000...

I've been working with panoramic video for about 10 years now...

Here's the demo page from my rapidly aging vrhotwires app...

http://www.vrhotwires.com/new.html

but we did corrected cylinder video in 97 or so with vrscript. (slowly)

oh also here's a panoramic video camera I built for $750
http://www.vrhotwires.com/InexpensivePa ... Video.html

The link in the above post has 3 or 4 new samples...I guess you couldn't see them?

(some windows users have said that the Videowarp player doesnt work for them (though it works fine on my windows box)

that's why I need to hurry and get these into flash...I need a workflow so I can post a lot of stuff....
fred
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Thanks for that.

Not into DIY that much to attempt the 6 camera setup, but is a cheaper option!

I guess the Ladybug will evolve with a simpler option one day... or onter options may come along...

Looks like a lot of fun, All the best
bm
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its possible to make a half decent panning video with a single video camera... you just have to choose a scene where you can make a single still pano, then go back and get movement in several locations...


I have a .flv now and I"m working on the last step... my html and .js chops are totally trial and error so any assistance is appreciated...
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thomas
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I have created a short video tutorial (sorry for my poor English, but Karyn is still not available...) on the creation of a panoramic video http://gardengnomesoftware.com/tutorial.php?movid=video . The page for the source code is http://gardengnomesoftware.com/wiki/Pano2VR_-_Video
MfG, Thomas
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Wim.Koornneef
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Hello Thomas,
thomas wrote:I have created a short video tutorial (sorry for my poor English, but Karyn is still not available...) on the creation of a panoramic video
Thanks for creating the tutorial video.
In a previous posting you pointed me to a wrong step in my workflow for the creation of the Flash video (I thought that you pointed to QTPro for making the movie AND to export it as flash) and you told me to use a separate Flash converter to convert the QT movie.

You also pointed me to ffmpeg for this job and because I am using Mac OSX I used ffmpegX for the conversion. I think I tried it yesterday a thousend times with all kinds of QT movies format and I spend a lot of time without any luck. Whatever QT Format I used none of the converted Flash movies will display.
I found out that the Flash movie content of others did load and displayed fine so my html file and the SWF pano container with controller are OK.

But thanks to your video tutorial my suspician that ffmpeg (and ffmpegX) is not suitable for the conversion from QT to Flash movie is confirmed.
In the tutorial I could see that you are using the "On2 VP6" codec but unfortunately this codec is not available and also not recognized in ffmpeg and as it turned out the Flash codec that is available in ffmpeg (don't know the name of it) is obviously not compatible with your Flash player.

Because ffmpeg/ffmpegX is the only free converter available you could do me, and a lot of other users of your software, a big favor to check out if it is possible to change the player so the Flash output of ffmpeg will be accepted.
I hope that this is possible, if not could you point me to the less expensive option to convert QT to Flash on Mac OSX ?

Best,
Wim

edit:
1) found the reason why ffmpeg (codec VP6) is not working, it has to do with a copyright issue.
http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=On2_VP6
2) Flash Professional isn't a good alternative for ffmpeg because the price is way to high for me (around 800 euro) so I really hope there is a less expensive alternative.
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thomas
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Wim.Koornneef wrote:I hope that this is possible, if not could you point me to the less expensive option to convert QT to Flash on Mac OSX ?
Ok, there is. The latest incarnation of the Flash player (9.0.115.0) can play back H.264 video.... and QuickTime can export it. So just open QuickTime Pro and say "Export" - "Movie to MPEG-4" - Options. There you can setup the Format (=H.264), image size etc. The extension will be .mp4 so you only need to feed that .mp4 file into the HTML file.

Another cheap option on the Mac is VisualHub, that allows the creation of Flash video for 23.32 US$
MfG, Thomas
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Wim.Koornneef
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Hello Thomas,
thomas wrote:The latest incarnation of the Flash player (9.0.115.0) can play back H.264 video.... and QuickTime can export it.
I have success with MP4 :-)
http://www.dmmdh.nl/panos/timelapse/fla ... e-mp4.html

Loading take some time, while loading there is no visual info about the progress (player displays a white screen).

The only issue is that at the end of the timelapse there is an annoying white frame for a moment when the movie loops.
Saving the movie as streaming or not streaming don't make any difference.

My QTPro export settings:
37 images, H264 codec, 3500 kb/s, 2frames/s, size 2880x1920px-3x2 special format, all other settings set to automatic.
The file size of the MP4 movie is 7.7 MB, I guess that with a little more try-outs with other bitrates this size could be a little smaller with approx. the same quality.
Another cheap option on the Mac is VisualHub, that allows the creation of Flash video for 23.32 US$
That price is OK but I think if the issue of the white frame can be solved then converting to Flash isn't necessary anymore.

Thomas thanks a lot for your help.

Best,
Wim.

edit:
I finaly have success in creating a Flash movie (with VisualHub) :-)
The file size of the Flash movie is 8.2 MB, bitrate etc. are the same as the MP4 movie.
http://www.dmmdh.nl/panos/timelapse/fla ... flash.html

I think the colors with the Flash movie are better and it seems to me that the controller is a little more interactive then with MP4.
I also like the colored blocks in the player when loading the movie, you now have at least some visual reference about the loading progress.
The issue of the flashing white frame at the end of the movie is also present in the Flash movie :-(
This issue only occurs on my MacBookPro and not on my iMacG5.
Last edited by Wim.Koornneef on Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
bm
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Hi all:

OK I'm started here, tomorrow I quit using the demo and get on with learning flash...

http://www.vrh2.com/videowarp/p2v2/VideoTest2.html

is the snowball fight in flash. There are big stitching errors on the laptop, I think I kept this shot because I made a perfect snowball throw and hit my daughter in the head...

http://www.vrh2.com/videowarp/p2v/VideoTest.html

is my shot from xmas morning last week. My indoor lighting skills are lame, there are some pretty advanced colour tweeking gui on the ladybug and I still just use the defaults...

this is very cool. We've had about 40 days in a row with rain and snow so I can't get out to take a shot outside, but one week from tomorrow, hawaii!

my first suggestion would be zoom in and out buttons since they work fine from the keyboard...
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