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I've created a pano that I would like to put on the web.
The tiff file that I created from photoshop ended up being roughly 12054 x 5786 = 204 mb without any compression and my resulting tour was 15mb.
What is the optimum size to be able to displayed on the web without long download times.
I scaled the img to 5k and the output it as a jpg. The resulting file was only 3mb.
What is the general width that one should work towards and yet not have image degradation?
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JPG or PNG both compress. Try outputting the 204mb file as a JPG and as a PNG, and see which one is smaller. Or play with the quality slider, etc.
Use KRPano or Zoomify or HDView, which will cut the image into smaller tiles and make download times more user-friendly.
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Have only managed to halve the size using png.
Thats keeping the same 12054 x 5786 resolution.
However If I'm taking that into autopanoTour and asking it to compute optimum size, it gets you the worst results.
But when I change to 1024/512 the results dropped to under 2mb.
I've was also trying earlier to take the resulting embeded flash file into sorrenson squeeze to compress it down further. But had no luck.
Has anyone tried compressing an embeded flash file ?
just out of curiosity, What application might that be ?
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I think what we have here is gross misunderstanding.
The size of the panorama rendered by AP has little to do with the final SWF size. First of all, what dimensions in degrees does your pano have? I'll assume its 360° wide and less than 180° high, and that you want to view it in a player that allows you to rotate yaw continually - a typical 360° player. I will also assume that we're talking about an equirectangular projection. For a fullscreen resolution of 1680x1050 I find that about 1000px or 1500px wide per tile is enough. If you don't want to allow fullscreen, then even less. 1500px wide per tile at a JPEG compression ratio of about 85-90% will give you a ~3MB swf. Your mileage may vary of course, according to basic compression rules.
What are tiles? Typical flash panorama players reproject your equirectangular panorama into a cube - 6 sides - 4 round and 1 top 1 bottom. The larger the tiles, the more detail will be visible when you zoom in in the flash player, assuming that the original equirectangular panorama was large enough to hold such detail. So for typical contemporary monitor resolutions, about 1500px wide per tile is enough to show a sharp fullscreen pano without holding too much info that would blow up the file size.
Which format you render from AP to makes no difference quality-wize (unless we're talking about lossless compression and so forth). Render to uncompressed TIFF, because its lossless and quick. Your flash panorama creator (krpano or whatever) will probably reproject to a cube and use JPG anyway, set quality to 85-90.
This is probably wrong, but IIRC 1000px wide per tile will be about 3500px wide equirectangular. I'd have to check, but I'd rather go to sleep :]
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The numbdr of tiles depends on the resolution of the final output. I tried on large pano that gave me three view levels (directories in the output of APT).
One directory (directory 0) had four tiles, the first three were 741x741, the other was a little narrower.
directory 1 had more tiles, still mostly 741x741 - about 8 per row, with two rows (it was a circular pano) - file sizes 60K to 220K
directory 2 had still more tiles, still mostly 741x741. -- fourteen pictures in four rows, 41K to 183K
So at the top level, there may be six tiles for an equirectangular pano. But as you zoom in, more tiles are created to keep the file sizes manageable.
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hankkarl wrote:
The numbdr of tiles depends on the resolution of the final output. I tried on large pano that gave me three view levels (directories in the output of APT).
One directory (directory 0) had four tiles, the first three were 741x741, the other was a little narrower.
directory 1 had more tiles, still mostly 741x741 - about 8 per row, with two rows (it was a circular pano) - file sizes 60K to 220K
directory 2 had still more tiles, still mostly 741x741. -- fourteen pictures in four rows, 41K to 183K
So at the top level, there may be six tiles for an equirectangular pano. But as you zoom in, more tiles are created to keep the file sizes manageable.
Autopano Tour (APT) is a front end GUI/XML code generator for the krpano Flash Panorama Viewer:
http://www.krpano.com
APT converts your input panos into a form suitable for optimal display by krpano, allows you to add hotspots to link panos and other features such control buttons, maps and a logo, and generates the XML files that control the krpano player to display your virtual tour (VT).
Uniquely (AFAIK) among the current crop of Flash panorama players/viewers (such as krpano, Flash Panorama Player, Pavo2VR, Panosalado and so on) krpano can perform a 'trick' called multi-resolution panoramas which permits the display of very high resolution panoramas even on computers with limited RAM. This is somewhat similar to what Zoomify and the Gigapan players do, but they can't handle 360x180 panos.
Hankkarl, you are describing multi-resolution output from APT. DrSlony was describing simple cube faces.
Just to make things a little more complex/confusing cube faces can themsleves be divided into smaller tiles, without the pano being multi-resolution.
Here is some more information about multi-resolution:
http://www.krpano.com/docu/multires/
And some examples:
http://www.krpano.com/examples/multires/
Anyway if you use APT you don't really need to worry about all this because APT will 'decide' what's 'best' for the panos you include in a tour. I've not seen any documentation of the 'rules' that are used within APT to determine how any particular pano is handled. An APT generated virtual tour can include multi-res and non multi-res panos and can mix spherical and partial panos.
However you will need to have a krpano unlimited domains licence to enable multi-resolution capability, and to be able to specifiy cube faces larger than 1024 pixels, and to set an image width of greater than 3072 pixels for partial panos, in Autopano Tour. And there are currently still limits in APT; even with that licence, cube faces cannot be greater than 5,000 pixels when dealing with spherical panos, and non-spherical panos have a upper limit to image width:
http://www.autopano.net/wiki-en/action/ … Properties
The 'take home' message is that if you want to do anything 'serious' with APT you need a krpano unlimited domains licence:
http://www.kolor.com/buy/software/krpano
Autopano Tour is currently only available as a bundle with Autopano Giga but it will be made available as a separate product at some as yet undisclosed future date.
Last edited by mediavets (2010-01-31 10:02:22)
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Gettting back to the original questions:
marquee wrote:
What is the optimum size to be able to displayed on the web without long download times.
...
What is the general width that one should work towards and yet not have image degradation?
Image degradation can be caused by:
- JPG artifacts if you (or the program) select too low a JPG compression. Solution: QED
- zooming in too much. To solve this, limit the zoom the user can do.
- JPG generations-each JPG decompress/recompress adds a bit of error.
- bad source file-poor lens, too slow of a shutter, etc.
- wrong sharpening or other filters, or no sharpening. Remember, sharpening affects acutance, it doesn't remove blur.
- NPP issues, or bad stitches, resulting in the blender blurring things. (except smartblend, and that may even have issues).
- a bunch of other things others may want to mention.
The width of a pano should not affect the sharpness. It should not cause image degradation.
- using a small pano and zooming in too much will highlight a bad photo, lens blur, or just pixelate the image.
- using a big pano and compressing it too much will cause a lot of degradation.
So multi-resolution is a good answer-when you zoom in too much, it brings in another layer of images.
The optimum size pano to display on the web with minimum distortion is to blend at 100% if you have a good stitch and used a good camera/lens system.
The optimum size pano to display on the web without a long download time is immaterial--let APT cut it into tiles, and only one, two or four tiles will need to be downloaded at any one time.
The optimum size of a tile varies by the type of connection the user has (a 32K modem is different than a T1/E1, which is different from ADSL, which is different than an OC3....)
Another factor is the speed of the server you use. Some servers are lightning-fast and immediatly respond, while others (especially cheap shared hosting) share your bandwidth with others, and there may be times you get an effective 16K connection because lots of other people are using the same internet connection, or are just sucking up processor resources. Sort of like "how fast can you get across town"? Normally the highway is quickest, but at 5:30PM on Friday the highway may be so congested its faster to take the back roads.
And the acceptable download time varies between people, and perceived value--I may wait a long time for a really beautiful image, and another day I may be in a hurry and not wait at all. Sorry, there's no easy answer for this.
Last edited by hankkarl (2010-01-31 23:04:33)
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mediavets wrote:
APT converts your input panos into a form suitable for optimal display by krpano, allows you to add hotspots to link panos and other features such control buttons, maps and a logo, and generates the XML files that control the krpano player to display your virtual tour (VT).
Uniquely (AFAIK) among the current crop of Flash panorama players/viewers (such as krpano, Flash Panorama Player, Pavo2VR, Panosalado and so on) krpano can perform a 'trick' called multi-resolution panoramas which permits the display of very high resolution panoramas even on computers with limited RAM. This is somewhat similar to what Zoomify and the Gigapan players do, but they can't handle 360x180 panos.
The GigaPan viewer certainly can handle 360x180 panoramas. The only hitch is that, once the panorama is uploaded to the GigaPan web site, you must geolocate the pano in Google Earth. The GigaPan web site has a set of tools to perform this task quickly and easily. This way, there's no need to worry about the size of the original image, you just need to save it as a compatible file for the dedicated GigaPan uploader (.jpg, .tif, and PS-raw), which now includes direct uploading of .kro files. The GigaPan uploader can be downloaded as a free application at
http://gigapan.org
See http://gigapan.org/gigapans/33733/ for an example of a nearly complete sphere hosted at gigapan.org, and geolocated in Google Earth. Getting the nadir of a 700+ frame sphere is a trick I still need to learn.
Also take a look at this AutoPano Forum thread: http://www.autopano.net/forum/t7318-apg … ear-sphere
Aloha,
Richard
Last edited by Apapane (2010-02-01 06:50:52)
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Apapane wrote:
The GigaPan viewer certainly can handle 360x180 panoramas. The only hitch is that, once the panorama is uploaded to the GigaPan web site, you must geolocate the pano in Google Earth. The GigaPan web site has a set of tools to perform this task quickly and easily. This way, there's no need to worry about the size of the original image, you just need to save it as a compatible file for the dedicated GigaPan uploader (.jpg, .tif, and PS-raw), which now includes direct uploading of .kro files. The GigaPan uploader can be downloaded as a free application at
http://gigapan.org
See http://gigapan.org/gigapans/33733/ for an example of a nearly complete sphere hosted at gigapan.org, and geolocated in Google Earth. Getting the nadir of a 700+ frame sphere is a trick I still need to learn.
Also take a look at this AutoPano Forum thread: http://www.autopano.net/forum/t7318-apg … ear-sphere
Aloha,
Richard
Richard,
Perhaps I am mistaken but it seems I was correct in stating that the Gigapan viewer cannot display spherical panos properly.
You yourself say that "It looks great as a sphere in the stitcher, but, once uploaded to gigapan.org, loses the spherical shape in the GigaPan viewer."
It is possible to view the pano in a correct spherical projection using the Google Earth viewer, but I had to download and install that software first, something which is unacceptable to many people who are fearful of downloading and installing software (or not permitted if using, for example, a work place computer).
Last edited by mediavets (2010-02-01 09:12:13)
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mediavets wrote:
Apapane wrote:
The GigaPan viewer certainly can handle 360x180 panoramas. The only hitch is that, once the panorama is uploaded to the GigaPan web site, you must geolocate the pano in Google Earth. The GigaPan web site has a set of tools to perform this task quickly and easily. This way, there's no need to worry about the size of the original image, you just need to save it as a compatible file for the dedicated GigaPan uploader (.jpg, .tif, and PS-raw), which now includes direct uploading of .kro files. The GigaPan uploader can be downloaded as a free application at
http://gigapan.org
See http://gigapan.org/gigapans/33733/ for an example of a nearly complete sphere hosted at gigapan.org, and geolocated in Google Earth. Getting the nadir of a 700+ frame sphere is a trick I still need to learn.
Also take a look at this AutoPano Forum thread: http://www.autopano.net/forum/t7318-apg … ear-sphere
Aloha,
RichardRichard,
Perhaps I am mistaken but it seems I was correct in stating that the Gigapan viewer cannot display spherical panos properly.
You yourself say that "It looks great as a sphere in the stitcher, but, once uploaded to gigapan.org, loses the spherical shape in the GigaPan viewer."
Yes, I did say that a stitched spherical gigapan looks great in the stitcher viewer, but loses the spherical shape when uploaded to the web site. Please, though, reread the referenced thread, and read again what I wrote above. The gigapan regains its spherical shape once geolocated and opened in Google Earth. Did you look at my example? Just click on the "View in Google Earth 4.2+" link to open the .kml file and explore the resulting sphere.
Richard
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Apapane wrote:
Yes, I did say that a stitched spherical gigapan looks great in the stitcher viewer, but loses the spherical shape when uploaded to the web site. Please, though, reread the referenced thread, and read again what I wrote above. The gigapan regains its spherical shape once geolocated and opened in Google Earth. Did you look at my example? Just click on the "View in Google Earth 4.2+" link to open the .kml file and explore the resulting sphere.
Richard
I think my last edit to my post overlapped with your latest post.
Yes, I was able to view with Google Earth (and reported that I had), but that's a PITA. Not everyone will have Google Earth installed - I didn't and I don't think I am uniquely Luddite. Not everyone will wish (or be permitted) to install Google Earth on their PC just to view a pano. And how many would know that you had to click on that "View in Google Earth 4.2+" link in the Gigapan page to view a spherical with a proper projection.
Compared to all this 'fuss' it's much easier - and provides a better viewer experience - to use multi-res and krpano IMO.
And I believe it is accurate, and fair, to say that the Gigapan pan viewer cannot handle 360x180 spherical panos properly. Yes, it can display an equirectangluar pano image as a 'flat' image - but that's not really the same thing as dislaying it as a spherical projection is it?
I'm not simply 'knocking' the whole Gigapan 'experience'/system - it has many admirable features and qualities - but it doesn't (yet?) work well for 360x180 panos IMO.
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