krpano 1.20.9 - New MAKE VTOUR Droplet, Panotype-Editor, Leveling, Chroma-Key/Transparent-Videos, Updates for macOS Big Sur and iOS 14

Hi all,

krpano version 1.20.9 is a little bit different then the releases before - the several command-line-based MAKE PANO / MAKE VTOUR droplets were replaced with one app-based droplet. This was mainly necessary because of the new macOS 11.0 (Big Sur) release, there Apple-Script is somehow broken (a macOS bug) and the previous droplets were using Apple-Script for redirecting the dropped files to the krpano command-line tools.

New Make VTOUR Droplet, Pano-type- and Leveling-Editor

• The new droplet works basically the same as the old ones, it is just small wrapper around the krpano command-line tools, but now as window-based app. The images can be either dropped on the app itself, or into the app window or opened via a file-dialog. Instead of using a separate droplet for each build config, now the related config files can be selected directly inside the droplet.
• A difference to the old droplets is the processing of partial-panos - instead of asking the user for the pano-type, now all non-cubical/non-full-spherical panos (or image without Photoshpere EXIF metadata) will be always automatically build as 'flat'-panos. This is intentional because the tile/image-structure is the same for flat-, spherical- and cylindrical-panos and because the updated VTour Editor has now a new tool for changing the pano-type and pano-field-of-view later after building.
• Additionally there is a new tool included for leveling pano images - in the special leveling mode the pano-view is locked to keep vertical lines always be vertical and that then allows manually rotating/dragging the image to align it to vertical helper lines. This way of leveling can be much quicker than doing it in the stitcher by defining vertical lines and provides instant results.

Here a quick video showing the usage:

A note about the new droplet and the vtour editor - as the old droplets this is also only a temporary solution. A better all-in-one tool with faster processing, way more editing capabilities and a better system-integration is now already in work for some time and should become finished during the next year.

New features in krpano 1.20.9

Chroma-Key-Masking

• With the chromakey feature a certain color in a hotspot-image or a hotspot-video can be used as transparency mask.
• The typical usage would be to include Greenscreen- or Bluescreen-videos.
• Here an example with a helper-tool for finding the correct parameters:
  
  
  
  

(thanks to polyvista.de for providing the example video)

Transparent Videos

• Another way for transparent videos is to use special videos that have their alphachannel as side-by-side or top-bottom image. This allows free control of the alpha-channel, but has the disadvantage of double memory- and video-decoding-needs.
• Technically krpano would support now also videos that have a build-in alpha-channel (the webm codec would support that), but this is currently not supported by any browser in combination with WebGL textures.
• The new alphachannel feature can be used for images and videos. A usage case for images would be storing large images with an alpha-channel as small JPEG instead as large PNG for faster loading.
• Here an example with an image and a video:
  
  

macOS Big Sur Support

• The old Apple-Script-based droplets currently don't work in macOS Big Sur (a macOS bug), therefore as alternative the new app-based Make VTour Droplet.
• ARM support (not native yet) by using a new krpano Tools app runtime version (NWJS 0.5 with Chromium 87). Full native ARM support will follow soon.
• New native looking default context-menu for OSX 10.* and macOS 11.*, including automatic support for light- and dark-mode.

iOS 14 Support

• The behavior of the Safari iPhone Fullscreen Mode (when rotating the iPhone to landscape) has been changed in iOS 14.2 and required several changes to support it again.
• The gyroscope sensor data from the Device Orientation Event is shaky / wobbling in iOS 14 for some reason, but the alternative Device Motion Event provides stable data, so this is now automatically used by default for this iOS version.
• The makeScreenshot() action sometimes wasn't working in iOS 14.

New XML / Actions / Javascript usage features

• New

  includexml(url)

  and

  includexmlstring(xmlstring)

  actions for dynamically loading/adding xml content. Can be used to load xml structures, layers, hotspots or actions at runtime without changing the pano-image or triggering any pano-changing events. These actions are marked as 'experimental' for the moment, because dynamically adding xml content might still have unexpected side-effects.
• The loadpano / loadscene / loadxml actions can have now an optional 'loaddone' callback for action-code or Javascript-functions, especially to handle direct Javascript calls in a controlled order.
• Support using custom CSS cursor for layers and hotspots.
• The bgborder, bgroundedge and bgshadow settings can now be used also on image layer elements (previously only on container elements).
• New autorun="onload" setting for actions to run them automatically every time a new pano gets loaded.
• New view.hfov, view.vfov, view.dfov, view.mfov, view.sfov variables for directly setting or getting the particular field-of-view based on the related fovtype but without changing the current fovtype setting.
• And several more...

More...

• All details about news, changes and fixes here in the Release Notes.

Best regards,
Klaus

Hi,

Quote from gaptat

Great upgrade as usual, I was hoping to find the multiple texture support for Obj files, there's any chance to get it sooner, please?
Thank you.

Yes, soon, more 3D-model support was originally planned for this release, but then Apple suddenly broke the Applescript support in one of the last macOS 11 beta releases and then it was a bit urgent making quickly a droplet alternative.
So more about 3D-Models in one of the next releases.

Quote from tomasparks

Could Linux arm be supported in the future?

The core krpano tools - yes, that would be already possible and just a simple recompile, but I have no Linux ARM tests systems yet...
What would be the usage case?
Is there a real demand?

Quote from jeromebg

Seems that onover is not called anymore on touch devices with 1.20.9 ?

Over/hover/out events are generally not available on 'touch' devices.
But in VR, right there is unfortunately a problem with the over events, will check that now.

Best regards,
Klaus

Hi,

Quote

Chroma key is also support 3D SBS videos?
So i can record a musican in real 3D for example and place it in real 3D pano?

Yes - the chromakey feature can be used together with the hotspot stereo feature:
https://krpano.com/docu/xml/#hotspot.stereo

Here a quick example with hotspot.stereo=TB and stereo-rendering enabled (but as the video itself is not a stereo top-bottom, it will be cut into halfs of course): Example

Btw - please share your example when ready, would be interesting to see!

Best regards,
Klaus