Hi,

the krpano 1.0.8 beta 9 tools are ready now,

the focus in the latest developments were:

• easier usage (new droplets, automatic sphere to cube, automatic single-swf generation, ...)
• better image quality (bicubic interpolation, improved transforming calculations, ...)
• better file/memory handling (64bit support, 16bit images, memory-management, ...)
• easier/better kprotect tool usage
• more possibilities/settings
• encryption
  

details about the 1.0.8 beta 9 tools:


new droplets: (now available equally for Windows and Mac)

MAKE PANO (MULTIRES) droplet
• build automatic multi-resolution panoramas
• spherical images will be automatically converted to cubicals
• used config file: kmakemultires.config

MAKE PANO (NORMAL) droplet
• build non-tiled, non-multi-resolution, 'normal' panoramas
• spherical images will be automatically converted to cubicals
• the default maximum cubesize is 2200 pixels
• used config file: templates/normal.config

MAKE PANO (TILED) droplet
• only tile the panoramic images, no multi-resolution
• spherical images will be automatically converted to cubicals
• used config file: templates/tiled.config

MAKE PANO (FLAT) droplet
• a especially for flat images optimized config/template
• build flat multi-resolution, zoom-able images
• full image view at the beginning
• drag2D, drag-cursor and zoomtocursor enabled by default
• the 'star' button will 'zoomout' to return to the initial view
• used config file: templates/flat.config

MAKE PANO (SINGLE-SWF) droplet
• build a single all-in-one swf file
• spherical images will be automatically converted to cubicals
• the default maximum cubesize is 2200 pixels
• used config file: templates/singleswf.config

MAKE PANO (SINGLE-SWF-TILED) droplet
• build a single all-in-one swf
• the panormaic image will be tiled for progressive loading
• spherical images will be automatically converted to cubicals
• used config file: templates/singleswftiled.config

MAKE PANO (SINGLE-SWF-MULTIRES) droplet
• build a single all-in-one swf
• the panormaic image will be tiled for progressive loading
• add additionally there will be 1-2 resolution levels (for better lowres/highres quality and rendering performance)
• spherical images will be automatically converted to cubicals
• used config file: templates/singleswfmultires.config

MAKE PREVIEW (CUBESTRIP) droplet
• build a cubestrip preview image
• support 1 spherical image or the 6 cubical faces as input

SPHERE to CUBE (JPEG) droplet
• convert spherical images to the 6 cube faces (saved as jpeg)
• edit the droplet (with any texteditor in Windows, or with the Apple Scripteditor in Mac) to change the jpeg compression settings

SPHERE to CUBE (TIFF) droplet
• convert spherical images to the 6 cube faces (saved as tiff)

CUBE to SPHERE (TIFF) droplet
• convert the 6 cubical faces back to a spherical image


NOTE- for customizing the droplets I would recommend to have a look at the kmakemultires.config
and the template/*.config files


new HTML/JS templates:

swfkrpano.html and swfkrpano.js (the default now)
• it's a combination of the swfobject.js (1.5) and swfkrpanomouse.js scripts
• plus a small addition for easier swf->html embedding
• advantages - only one external script file (faster loading) and easier embedding (the flash, fullscreen, mousewheel setting will be automatically set)

inlinejs.html
• the same like swfkrpano.html and swfkrpano.js but the script is in-lined into the html file
• no external js file
• easier file handling, only the html and the swf file


64bit versions of all command line tools
• faster image processing
• especially on large images and when more than 2gb ram is installed

changes that affect all tools
• support for tiff files from Photoshop that are larger than 2gb
• support for 16bit tiff files

better quality for the ktransform and kcube2sphere tools
• now bicubic interpolation is used by default
• as result will be sharper but the processing will be a bit slower
• use the "-fast" command line parameter for bilinear interpolation and faster processing

kcube2sphere tool
• better image quality
• fewer memory need
• now with memory management (can process images that don't fit in memory)

ktransfrom tool
• better image quality
• support now also partial panoramic images (360x*)

kencrypt tool (new)
• a command line tool to encrypt external files
• more details below on "file encryption"

kprotectcl tool (new)
• kprotect command line tool
• build protected swf files with embedded files from command line or form script

kmakemultires tool
• integrated sphere-to-cube conversion (optional, customizable)
• integrated files to swf embedding (with automatic lookat depending tiles sorting)
• automatic license/swf copying/renaming
• filename/cubeside detection bugfixes
• manual "-panotype=partialsphere" setting (hfov setting needed too)
• optimized automatic tilesize calculation
• new xml/html templates
• new html template placeholders: [NAME], [SWF], [XML]
• new xml template placeholders: [PREVIEW], [IMAGE], [HLOOKAT], [VLOOKAT], [PARTIALPANO]

kprotect gui tool
• reworked/improved gui
• improved xml parsing and better file reference detection
• improved automatic file sorting
• more options for embedded files
• project loading/saving
• file encryption
• standalone size customizable


file encryption
• encrypt external files with the kencrypt command line or the kprotect gui tool
• only a 'protected' swf can load these encrypted files

how does it work?
• the encryption key is generated from the tools license
• note - the krpano/tools licenses are personalized and individually for every user, so every key is individually too
• the key is divided into two parts
• one part is stored in the protected swf file
• and one part in the encrypted file
• so only the protected swf can decrypt the files


NOTE - when updating from older versions, I would recommend to keep the new tools in a new/separate folder and don't mix it with older versions, the templates and config files are different, and the newer krpano.swf must be used for correct working!


get the new tools here:
http://krpano.com/download/


this is the last beta release before the final release!
(the viewer release will come too in the next days)


Update 2009-12-05: kprotect tool bugfix for domain locked swfs
Update 2009-12-06: bugfix 16bit images
Update 2009-12-09: bugfix 16bit images with alpha channel, kprotect install folder
Update 2009-12-12: several bugfixes for PPC Mac (wrong colors)
Update 2009-12-14: bugfix kcube2sphere tool (broken image, bug from build 2009-12-12)
Update 2009-12-16: bugfix swfkrpano.js - html object name was hardcoded ("krpanoDIV")
Update 2009-12-30: experimental PSB support, improved kprotect, some bugfixes
Update 2010-01-05: 16bit PSB images, kencrypt parameters bugfixes
Update 2010-01-13: ktransform/kmakemultires bugfix for tiled tiff images, updated viewer
Update 2010-01-19: PSB bugfixes, kprotect path bugfixes, updated viewer
Update 2010-02-15: memory handling, kprotect paths bugfixes, 'maxcubesize' speedup, updated viewer

best regards,
Klaus

Hi,

there is new version online (build 2009-12-05),
only the kprotect tool was changed, there was a strange bug (compiler bug?) in it,
which makes domain locked swf files not working correctly...

Quoted from "gomi42"

I'm just playing around with the new encryption feature. I encrypted all 151 jp's in the tiles directory. After a while I figured out that I have to add all files on the "Embedding" page of kprotect. Further I need to set each single file to "not embedded" and "encrypted" via the "edit" dialog. To be honest it is quite boring to edit 151 files. Its even worse if it comes to multi resolution. Or is there a way to set all files in one shot to the desired values?

if you don't want to embed files, you could also just remove it from the list,
or uncheck "Automatic Analyse and Resolve XML files" and add only the files you want to be embedded manually...

Quoted from "Castillonis"

Wow! Klauss, you have been working arduously. 16 bit TIFFs are a suprise. I thought the flash engine was 8 bit after reading the pixelblender documentation.

16 bit TIFF files can be readed, transformed and be written as TIFF, but when saving as JPEG they will be converted to 8 bit of course, so in Flash itself they will be still 8 bit

Quoted from "Castillonis"

Did you have a solution for serving gigapan image pyramids natively? I can always use the Photoshop Zoomify plugin for exporting PSD/PSB files that are larger than the TIFF limit.

yes, the 1.0.8 beta 9 viewer has native support for gigapan images, but there is a problem left - access to the gigapan servers is not possible because they don't have a crossdomain.xml that allows the access to it, more details here later...

best regards,
Klaus

Hi,

there is a new version online (build 2009-12-06), it fixes the problems with 16bit images,

Quoted from "Castillonis"

I think that you can actually grab the image pyramid from the 'tiles' folder if you stitch it with their stitcher. That would allow you to serve it using your own domain.

more details on the gigapan usage later... but if the tiles were on your own domain, using and viewing them will be no problem

best regards,
Klaus

Quoted from "michel"

It seems that the new ZIP file krpanotools-1.0.8-beta9-win-2009-12-06 has some error ...

sorry, the upload of the 32bit windows version was corrupt for any strange reason...
I have uploaded it again, now it should be okay...

Quoted from "VN2009"

if the new templates cause the images to load faster would there be any advantage to reprocessing some of our older tours or is the difference negligable?

the html template has nothing to do with the loading speed in the viewer,
just instead of loading the "swfobject.js" and the "swfkrpanomouse.js", only the "swfkrpano.js" will be loaded,

one file less to load, but I think there is no need to change older tour just for this