Hi,

the next krpano version is ready: krpano 1.17 Pre Release
Please see below for the news and changes in this version.

Btw - A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to everyone!

Best regards,
Klaus

Why a Pre Release?

First I want to explain why this version is called 'Pre Release' and what it means. The version itself is a fully stable release and can be used productively of course! It is just not fully feature-complete yet! With 'not fully complete' especially the krpano tools are meant. There is a new tool called 'krpano Tools', which currently can be only used to register the krpano licenses, but when finished it will offer new functionality and it will replace the 'krpano Protect Tool' and the 'krpano Update Tool'. Therefore these two tools are currently missing in this Pre Release. Their functionality itself is still there, either by using the krpano command-line tools or by using the droplets. Still missing in this Pre Release are also the Linux version and fully updated documentations, templates and examples.

HTML5 Multiresolution Support

A key feature of the new 1.17 version is the new HTML5 Multiresolution support:

• The new multi-resolution system was build up from ground and designed and optimized for high-performance rendering and the best possible image-quality on all systems and devices.
• It works with WebGL and CSS3D. When WebGL is available, then also panoramic projections like Fisheye, Stereographic (=Little-Planet) or Pannini are available.
• There are practically no image size limits - several Gigapixel-, Terapixel or even Petapixel (see example) are no problem.
• HTML5 Multiresolution is available for Cubical and Flat panos (a special Partial pano support, without the need of 'extended' images, will come in later versions).
• All common browsers and devices are supported - with only one exception: old Android WebView browsers without WebGL support. The CSS3D support in these browsers is much too buggy. Other Android browsers like Chrome, Opera or especially Firefox are working very well.

• Improved iOS stability due reduced default memory usage and improved memory control. But please note - even with improvements, iOS (especially iOS 7) is still a very instable system and crashes and black tiles can still appear sometimes.
• Additionally there are new settings for fine-tuning the memory need for special cases:
  • The default memory limit can be changed now by the memory.maxmem setting.
  • The threshold for controlling when to switch to a higher level can be changed with the image.multiresthreshold setting. By reducing that setting the memory need can be reduced (but also the image quality/sharpness).
• Tile reloading during movement also on tablets/mobiles. Customizable via the new display.loadwhilemoving setting.

HTML5 Multiresolution Examples:

License Changes

With version 1.17 the license system has been slightly changed. The previously separately available Flash and HTML5 licenses have been merged into one single license. Additionally the license format also has been changed - instead of binary license files, which needed to be copied into the correct folder, now more common 'text' license keys, which only need to be registered once in the new 'krpano Tools' application, will be used. That means there will be no fault-prone external license files anymore - after having registered, all output viewer files will be automatically licensed.
Due these changes, older licenses need to be updated or upgraded. The old licenses will be still available for ordering until the final version 1.17 will be released.

Update / Upgrade costs?
The updates itself are free - except for the case when you don't have both old licenses (the 'krpano License' and the 'krpano HTML5 Add-On License'). In this case, when having only the 'krpano License' alone, it would be necessary to upgrade the license to be able to use the new versions (1.17 and up). The upgrade price for this case is 45 € plus sales tax/VAT.

krpano Viewer Changes

The new krpano viewer versions are no longer supporting external license files. The licenses always need to be embedded. The license embedding itself will be done automatically when outputing a file. Additionally some viewer files got renamed - their old names ('swf' and 'iphone') had historical reasons which are already outdated now:

File	Version 1.16	Version 1.17
krpano Embedding Script	swfkrpano.js	embedpano.js
krpano HTML5 Viewer	krpanoiphone.js	krpano.js

krpano Tools Changes

In version 1.17 all krpano command-line tools have been merged into one single tool, which is simply called 'krpanotools' now. The old tools can be called by using a different first argument for each tool, the remaining arguments are the same like in the previous versions. Additionally there is the new argument 'register' for registering the new krpano licenses from command line if necessary.

Version 1.16	Version 1.17
kmakemultires	krpanotools makepano
kmaketiles	krpanotools maketiles
kmakepreview	krpanotools makepreview
ktransform	krpanotools sphere2cube
kcube2sphere	krpanotools cube2sphere
kencrypt	krpanotools encrypt
kprotectcl	krpanotools protect
-	krpanotools register

krpano Tools Compatibility Changes:

• No Windows 2000 support anymore, Windows XP or higher required.
• No Mac PowerPC support anymore, OSX 10.7 or higher required (OSX 10.6 might still work, but is offically no longer supported anymore).

More Security / Protection Features

• There are new secure actions - these are actions that will be callable from Javascript even when the Javascript interface is disabled. This makes it possible to create a controlled and limited external interface.
  Syntax: <action name="..." secure="true">
• The new noex ('no external') setting for the protect tool can be used to forbid loading xml and plugin files from external domains.
• The new pxml ('private-xml-only') setting for the protect tool allows only the loading of privately-encrypted xml files. Files without encryption or with public encryption can not be loaded when enabled.

Google Maps Plugin for HTML5

• The Google Maps Plugin is now available also for HTML5.
• To use the Google Maps Plugin, just replace 'bingmaps.js' with 'googlemaps.js' in the xml file (e.g. in the 'vtourskin.xml' when using the MAKE VTOUR droplets).

Bing Maps / Google Maps Comparison - the same tour with different map plugins:

Download Packages

The separate viewer and the tools download packages have been merged into one single download package. Additionally also the 32 and 64bit packages have been merged. The droplets will now automatically choose the right version for the current system.
For the Windows version a 'Self-Extracting-Archive' EXE file (SFX) will be used. This safes ~12 MB of filesize compared to a normal ZIP file.

Other News and Changes / Release Notes

There were also several small improvements and fixes. For a detailed listing about all news, changes and fixes, please see here for the Release Notes:
Release Notes - krpano 1.17 Pre Release