Hi,

krpano Version 1.0.8.15 is ready:
http://krpano.com/news/#2012-08-10

The 1.0.8.15 version was initially just planed a small bugfix/update release for the 1.0.8.14 version, but then during development and the preparing of the release, more and more features were added and many things improved, so that this version had become a much bigger release with many overall improvements.

There is now HTML5 support for all common Desktop Browsers and Android 4.x, the new layer and container elements and the automatic sub-layering, new plugins like the Bing Maps plugin for HTML5 and the ScrollArea plugin for scrolling layers, for an easier generation of virtual tours an improved MAKE VTOUR droplet with a fully featured virtual tour default skin, which should show/demonstrate the new possibilities and a simple Virtual Tour Editor plugin for adjusting the tours and adding hotspots.


HTML5 Support
For all information about the HTML5 support, see the new HTML5 documentation page here:
http://krpano.com/docu/html5/#top

And see there also the HTML5 ? Flash comparison demo:
http://krpano.com/docu/html5/comparison.html


MAKE VTOUR Demonstration
The new MAKE VTOUR Default Skin is a demonstration of the new possibilities of the viewer and the tools: It uses the new xml layer and container elements, the ScrollArea plugin, the HTML5 Bing Maps plugin, the automatic geotagging (by an automatic GPS transfer from the input-images to the xml/scenes, to place the spots automatically on the map) and the new Virtual Tour Editor plugin for easily editing and finishing the tours.

Here a demonstration video - from the pano images to the final tour in a few minutes:



New Layer / Sublayers (Parent-Child) / Container Elements
For new users there was always some confusion about the <plugin> element - as it's names suggests it can be used for 'plugins', but basically it is an element for all kind of graphic elements on the screen. To make that usage more clear, it has been renamed to <layer> now. The old name 'plugin' still can be used of course - internally the <plugin> and <layer> elements are the same elements.

When trying to group several plugin/layer elements, then always a parent element is necessary and this parent always had needed an url image to become visible and usable. But often it isn't necessary that this parent element is visible or it should be just a single-colored image. To avoid the need of image files for such simple cases, there is now the new type="container" setting for <plugin>/<layer> elements. With it an empty or single-colored element can be created. That element itself can be used just like a normal <plugin>/<layer> elements.

About the parent/child system itself - until now each child element had to be defined separately and assigned to its parent element by using the parent="name" setting. Now this can be also simplified and automated by declaring the children elements as xml-children-nodes inside the the parent xml-node.
e.g. here the old/current xml syntax: (which still can be used of course) and here the new xml syntax: (the result will be exactly the same) By using this way the parent setting of the children elements will be automatically set to the name of parent element and also the keep setting copied from it.

When using many elements and children-elements on the screen, the rendering/calculation performance is an important topic (especially on slow mobile devices). This version had also many internal improvements here. When just moving elements (by tweening the x/y settings) only the moved element itself will be recalculated and all children elements keep cached. Additionally also the Flashplayer and the HTML5 Browsers have internal optimizations for this case to make normal moving very efficient. Other transformations like scaling always need the recalculation of all children elements, so as performance tip - for very fluid animations try just to move elements.
E.g. instead of scaling a container, it will be possible to mask it (by using maskchildren) and just move one big child element inside it. The new default vtour skin is using that technique a lot.


Plugins News
Beside the new HTML5 Bing Maps, ScrollArea and Virtual Tour Editor plugins, also the existing plugins have been improved. The HTML5 Combobox plugin supports now Retina screens, draws itself much faster and also supports custom graphics/designs. The Sound-Interface and the Videoplayer plugins have been extended to support also different HTML5 codecs (different HTML5 Browser have different codec support).
The Textfield plugin itself has also been much improved - now it works and looks almost pixel-perfect identically in Flash and HTML5. For easier usage, the vcenter and autoheight settings have been added. To make the shadowing (or glowing) usable and customizable in the same way for Flash and HTML5, the shadow settings have been extended (thanks to the TextfieldEx plugin from Aldo Hoeben for the inspiration!).


Tools / Droplets
Now the ktransform and kmakemultires tools can also convert cylindrical images to cubical (for usage in the HTML5 viewer). The kmakemultires can read EXIF GPS informations for automatic geotagging and use the EXIF pano-type and fov informations from Autopano output images for automatic detecting the correct type of the pano. For improved multiresolution loading and rendering performance the sizes of the multiresolution levels will be automatically be adjusted a bit now (to avoid very small/narrow partial tiles). There an new settings in the kmakemultires config files for automatically generating several special sized images for certain devices (customimage setting).


Documentation / Examples
Many parts of the documentation and the krpano web-page also have been updated and refined:
There is new the HTML5 documentation.
The new krpano Tools documentation with a detailed documentation of the kmakemultires Config files.
And updated HTML Embedding, XML Reference,Actions and Plugins documentations.

There are two new tour examples which are using the new default vtour skin:
- The Corfu Tour
- And the great high-resolution Paris Tour (thanks to ecliptique panoramics for providing the panos!)

All other tours and the updated interface examples have now additional HTML5 links for viewing them in the HTML5 viewer:
http://krpano.com/examples/vtour/
http://krpano.com/examples/interface/


Too see a listing of all changes, please see the Release Notes here:
http://krpano.com/news/#releasenotes10815-2012-08-10
http://krpano.com/news/#releasenotes10815-2012-10-05
or see the in the download packages included 'releasenotes.txt' file:
http://krpano.com/examples/10815/releasenotes.txt


The new version can be downloaded as always here on the krpano download page:
http://krpano.com/download/


Best regards,
Klaus

Hi,

Quoted from "Zephyr"

Btw, about the GPS, I'm new to this, I know there's exif in a tile (directly from the camera), but isnt the exif lost when you resave it after stiching to 1 big panorama?

No, so far I know, Autopano and PTGUI are transferring the GPS informations from the input images to the output pano images. And you can also use geo-tagging tools to add the GPS location later after stitching manually.

Quoted from "Zephyr"

Alsoo, if you can generate map points, is it posibble to generate hotspots to, making the assumption that 0,0 is the north bearing. The user then only should alter the atv of a hotspot, and perhaps the image.voffset.

Theoretically that might be possible of course... (also just via xml of course ), you might need to re-project the lat/lng coordinates to a different space and the calculate the angles and distances...
I think 360cities is doing such too with their automatic hotspots...

Quoted from "Zephyr"

Are the variables/placeholders also available in the droplet templates (btw where are all the placeholder variables documented, thinks like SCENE, PARTIAL, HOTSPOTS, FOV)

Yes, and their are documented in the new tools/config documentation here:
http://krpano.com/tools/kmakemultires/config/#xmltemplate

Quoted from "Arsdezi"

I tested the new file iphone-ipad-simulyator.html and it does not work in HTML5, and the panorama starts in Flash. JS and XML files works fine with the previous file of the simulator!

When that happens, then your are using an old swfkrpano.js file with the new iphone-ipad-simulator.html. Either the file itself is old or your browser has still cached an old version. As solution just make sure that all files are up-to-date and/or clear your browser cache. (The exact reason behind that problem - the html5 parameter of the createPanoViewer() function is new in this version and will be ignored in older versions and so the normal Flash viewer used).

Best regards,
Klaus