Hi,
here a short preview about what will come with the next krpano version:
krpano HTML5 Multiresolution Preview
Features
Some key features and details about the new HTML5 Multiresolution viewer:
-
High-Performance and Imagequality
- The multi-resolution system in the new viewer was build up from ground and designed for the todays HTML5 requirements.
- It works with WebGL and CSS3D and when WebGL is available, then all technical possibilities that are possible with it, were used of course - that means fast-rendering, Mip-Mapping (for reducing aliasing) and different panoramic projections like Fisheye, Stereographic (=Little-Planet) or Pannini (use the right-click contextmenu in the examples to change that).
- The Javascript rendering code is extremely fast and efficient, even on slower mobile devices it takes only a few milliseconds (1-4ms) to build up the view that the browser needs to display.
- The only left performance drawback in HTML5 is the image-decoding - every time an image gets used the first time, the browser needs to 'decode' it (e.g. from jpeg to its pixels) and this decoding 'blocks/stops' the browser for a short time. On typical desktop computers and with newer browsers this is almost not noticeable, but on slower mobile devices this is still a problem. To reduce that problem, the viewer does the image-decoding only when there is no movement in the pano on these devices.
-
No size limits
- Different to the current Flash version, there are practically no limits of the panoramic image size. The Flash version does a lot of precalculations for faster runtime-rendering, but this increases the startup-time and the memory-need, so these two things are limiting the usable maximum size there. In the HTML5 version this is not the case, there everything will be managed and calculated on demand. There several Gigapixel-, Terapixel or even Petapixel are no problem.
-
Stability and efficient Memory-usage
- Especially on the iOS devices this is very important topic - the Safari browser there tends to crash or close-itself when too much memory will be used.
- Therefore the viewer constantly manages the memory and number of loaded and displayed tiles - and when too much memory would be needed, then older, currently not used tiles will be removed and unloaded.
-
Cross-Platform, Cross-Device, Cross-Browser compatibility:
-
Even with HTML5 there are still a lot differences between the
browsers (especially for CSS3D rendering).
Like in the previous krpano versions, the viewer automatically
deals with these differences.
All common browsers and devices are supported - with one exception - Android WebView-based browsers (without WebGL support) are not capable enough for HTML5 multiresoltuion - the CSS3D rendering in these browsers is just too buggy to be able to be used. But other Android browsers like Chrome, Firefox or Opera are working very well. And because Google itself also plans to remove and replace the current WebView, this should be only a temporary problem. In several newer Android devices the stock browser is already Chrome or at least Chrome-based.
-
Even with HTML5 there are still a lot differences between the
browsers (especially for CSS3D rendering).
Like in the previous krpano versions, the viewer automatically
deals with these differences.
Download
The new HTML5 viewer is available for downloading and testing - just get it here:
krpano HTML5 Multiresolution Preview - Download
Additionally some slightly off-topic remarks:
A big Hello to everyone at the Iceland2013
IVRPA conference - unfortunately I wasn't early enough ready with everything
(the new viewer, the examples, and many things more) to be able to come there -
but next time I will for sure! 
Thanks to Kolor for presenting the new krpano HTML5 viewer there.
And also thanks for Jeffrey Martin and 360cities
for providing the 45 Gigapixel Tokyo pano - this pano has great quality,
is extremely large and has soo much content to explore - so it was the ideal pano for
demonstrating the new krpano HTML5 multiresolution possibilities.
Best regards,
Klaus
