Native FFC html5 / webkit / safari panos

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Yes, there will be a native FFC support for the "html5"/webkit/safari panos soon. Proggy is currently working on this project, and I hope it will become available soon.

This will become a paid addition, and not a part of the free update policy, and I truly hope that all existing FFC users will opt for this addition. The price for the addon will be around 65 euros, and even though it might be quite bare boned initially, it will be built on until it can simulate most things we have available in FFC.

I attach a poll for this subject, in order to see the general sentiment for or against the plan to provide this at a cost. Not that a negative poll would change the plan one way or the other, since the economy has to make some sense on this end.

Your opinions and thoughts regarding this are VERY welcome.

Trausti

[Vedder]

This would be great!

Vedder

[RonWed]

Great!
When and how can I pay!

Ron

[aandres]

Great news! Thanks for keep working on the project. I definitely think it is fair to pay to help with the development from an economic perspective!

[mathrafal]

A very good and long-awaited idea.

Jon

[ondrat]

Well, this is THE news we are all waiting for, isn't it? I reckon the most of the FFC users have been praying for being able to generate idevices friendly virtual tours since a long time ago. There is no doubt that there would be no future for FFC without option to generate output for idevices. Its great to hear you are planning to invest resources to develop this addition until it is able to simulate most of the FFC abilities. We are all seeing a great demand for virtual tours friendly to play on portable devices and it look like in a very near future there would be more people browsing internet on smartphones and tablets rather than on PCs or laptops. 70 euros is very reasonable price and personally I would be keen to pay a lot more if this addition could be labeled as FFC, that is 'Leading the way - all the way!' ...I mean if it'd offer the industry most advanced virtual tours for portable devices.
Can't wait for more news in this matter!
Regards
Ondrej

[thwohojr]

I know that I've been looking forward to this development for a while. More and more potential clients "expect" mobile device compatibility for their projects.

Looking forward to hearing more... "bare boned" is better than nothing, but still what is bare-boned"?
Would this be based on the current 2.0 version of FFC or a newer 3.0 version? (I remember you thinking that the 2.0 model has been developed about as far as you wanted to go with the original FPP code)

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Many thanks for the overwhelmingly positive feedback. Time has not been on our side for almost as long as I can remember, and that is the main reason for not going into this area... if we look away from my own initial grumpy attitude towards all things starting with a little "i".

Bare boned in my mind, means that it will not be with all the bells and whistles that it will end up having. Kind of like FFC was in it's infancy. There will be a need for making things that can simulate what we have now... there will be a lot of things that can not be simulated, such as multiple videos in a single pano... that is not possible, and automatic start of video or sound ... and a whole lot more that is not and will not be possible because of the much inferior technology that powers the iDevice code.

My plan was absolutely not to bring more life to the current version, but things changed, and I changed my mind. Why? Well, Proggy started working in the country's biggest software company, developing apps for iDevices, as the lead-programmer in that part of the company. Yes, he is that good Prior to that employment he had no hands-on experience with the languages needed for iDevice software (not directly), but now things have changed, and it would be stupid not to take positive advantage of his current situation and let him finish what he started months ago.

He is doing well on the development, but there is of course a lot more needed... and since he is working in the other company most of the time, this development has to come out of his spare time. I have another project for him to finish, which is not panorama related, and even though that project has the potential of millions of mobile users, I will let this one have first priority.

There are limitations on what we can do with the current FPP engine, simply because there are parts of it that are known only to one person, and he is not available for advising or explaining the math in the engine, which would be needed for things such as multi resolution in Flash. That is not going to happen with the FPP engine. The iDevice engine is not limited by the FPP limitations since it is an entirely new engine, but the limitations in the safari panos is more than enough to stifle proper development, and the FPP issues seem like nothing in comparison.

Of course the price is a bit high compared to FFC itself, but then again; FFC has been way way too cheap (I have to say that based on the economical costs related to the development, and not from the perspective of someone who has to pay for the product(s), which is of course a different view to hold for most end users).

Once the engine is ready for a sneak-peak, I will of course have an example published for testing.

Pre-orders would be welcome of course... if there is interest I could provide those at a slightly lower price.

Again, thanks for the kind words and positive attitude

[sandy]

I'm afraid I must differ a little bit. I think you would have to come into the market with AT LEAST the functionality of P2VR which has automatic HTML5 fallback with multi-resolution, hotspots, transitions, directional sound etc. to make it worth it for me to spend the money on this option.

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

That is also what I hope we can start out with, but without everything ready as of now, it is impossible to promise full functionality on every front. That is also why I mention that it may be bare-boned to start with (anything beyond bare bones, is of course positive, and I would love to have it with everything from the start, so that there would be no need to have ongoing long-term development and the need for people to update several times as it has been with the FFC development.

Let's hope that things will surprise us all in a positive way.

[Morten]

G'day Trausti,

In this niche world that is panoramic photography and ‘Vitrtual Tours’ we have become very familiar and comfortable with using a diverse set of tools for each part of our workflow. I currently use;

• Photoshop CS5
• Super Rune Filters
• Enfuse Gui
• PTGui
• FCC
• iOSVR

I think most of us chose these products as they are the best at doing each of the tasks required (IMHO). There is some weighting towards convenience when two products can produce the same quality outcome. However, with all the work required to put a Virtual Tour together, quality is always going to play the highest role.

So, to answer the question, if it does a good job and is convenient to use, I’m sure many (most) of us would be very interested. To be very frank - I would much prefer to see the stability and usability of FFC improve before I would be interested in this. The outcomes using FFC are definitely of the highest standard. Though, the road to get there is still often very bumpy.

Regards,

Morten

[WideEyes]

Absolutely I will pay for it.

Look at what compeeting companies are charging - then it is crazy that FCC is so cheap. You should also consider changing your strategy for free upgrades. You should all in all stop beeing so polite, and consider this a professional business and act like it. Your software / solutions is top notch and so should your prices be! After all - if we pay more you have more money to develop, and that will benifit all of us!

AT the moment we pay for camera, lense, stitcher, photo editing etc etc etc. Why not pay for FCC? I would gladly. After all I use this tool to sell my tours and make money.

Regards
Morten

[VitoDiVita]

Absolutely I will pay for it.

Look at what compeeting companies are charging - then it is crazy that FCC is so cheap. You should also consider changing your strategy for free upgrades. You should all in all stop beeing so polite, and consider this a professional business and act like it. Your software / solutions is top notch and so should your prices be! After all - if we pay more you have more money to develop, and that will benifit all of us!

AT the moment we pay for camera, lense, stitcher, photo editing etc etc etc. Why not pay for FCC? I would gladly. After all I use this tool to sell my tours and make money.

Regards
Morten

Quoted for truth. Updates should cost $$, or FFC should be on a monthly subscription. FFC is an integral part of my work.

[Paddy2a]

Go for it..no problem to pay update.
Maybe look into WebGL also like pano2vr because after Ice Cream Sandwich for Android, flash support is dropped.
I'd also like to second an optional "Premium monthly support" package to give Trausti the means to give us bug free tested software. (and me not to freak out when I upgrade too quickly.)

[Vedder]

Is there any way to make an application for androids and playbooks?

Vedder

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Android 3.0 and 4.0 support CSS 3D transformations ... today (actually yesterday) that was a total of 6.2% of the total Android marketshare. Not much by any measurement stick, but it will only get bigger as time moves on, so yes, that is something that Proggy is looking into as well, and I expect good coverage there for versions 3 and 4, while previous versions will remain without any special support... there are versions of Android (depending on device) (2.2, 2.3, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, and 4.0) which can play Flash content. Then there are the Android tablets... version 3.1 is considered as minimum for those to play Flash content... there is a lot of different versions, hardware and providers that make things more muddy.

RIM (Research In Motion) has failed getting foothold on the consumer market, and they are going to shift focus away from normal consumers, over to enterprice solutions. This will undoubtedly mean that even fewer consumers will be purchasing their PlayBooks, and that segment of the market will most likely die before it ever gets proper feet. Making a special player for RIM will not be on our top priority list any day soon.

"Responsive design" is what you as content creators have to be aware of and design your tours according to the layout requirements. Things have to be able to change in real time and in a logical manner.

No, that is not something that can be done on our end so that things will magically fit everything automatically.

Please visit the following links in order to gain more knowledge about those things... something that will really matter later on:

http://danny-t.co.uk/index.php/2012/04/ ... derations/
http://www.thismanslife.co.uk/projects/ ... ustration/
http://jamus.co.uk/demos/rwd-demonstrations/

If only Flash could be used on all devices, there would be no problem, but the world has been divided, and is continuing that segmentation on several fronts

[Vedder]

Thank Trausti! I can not understand some technical things ... forgiveness, but from what I understand would be very difficult to build an application for androids, right?

I would like to ask you about Flash and HTML5, there are many discussions about who is better! Some people say that Flash tends to disappear with time, this is possible? The new version FFC will be in Flash, right? Is there any date for release? It would be better in HTML5? Forgive me for my ignorance on any question asked!

Thank you!

Vedder

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Building a player for Android is not *that* difficult. It can be done and it's not a problem per se... but because Android is NOT the same as Android, things get complicated. Let's assume that telephone producer "A" makes 10 different models of smart phones. We can actually count on there being at LEAST 3 different versions/builds of Android running on these phones. Maybe one of the builds can run Flash, while the other 9 won't. Maybe 3 are with WebGL support, while the other 7 don't have it... etc. Then there is phone producer "B"... and they also have 10 different smartphones... their Android OS will be very different from the Android system of the phones from producer "A".

What is better, Flash or HTML5 .... that is not really a question to be asked. HTML5 is not a competitor to Flash, but rather a platform for internet browsers. Flash will benefit from it, so will everything else. For us, in the panorama field, we have now the Flash panoramas and webkit/Safari browser panoramas. I know of only ONE HTML5 panorama player, and it was made before the first release of HTML5 capable browsers... it was very crude, and there has been nothing done to replace it or build something similar, since it doesn't have a future tied to it. In technical terms HTML5 simply doesn't have what it takes to run interactive content smoothly and easily. If we talk about Flash and Safari/Webkit panos, the answer is very very simple: Flash is by far the superior technology in every way we can look at it.

What can be done in Flash now, is completely impossible to do in webkit/Safari panos.
Playing internet radio in the background and having a "DING" mp3 soundfile to play at the same time (imagine you have a hotspot that is supposed to say "DING" when it is clicked)... can be done EASILY with Flash, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to do in webkit/safari browser panos. Not going to happen. And lets assume you have a pano with a fireplace, using a video showing the fire, and in the same locale there are several candles burning (also videos)... NOT a problem to do in Flash, but completely and absolutely impossible to do in Webkit/Safari panos... it is even impossible to have a video to start playing automatically. The software has the enablers for doing it, but Apple has decided it should not be permitted. It has prompted me to ask myself: How many people have lost their lives or livelihood because of some video files starting to play automatically? ... and I have yet to find one single case that can justify blocking that feature. Thanks for your stupidity Apple!

The iOS player Proggy is making now, will be sold as an add-on for Flashificator, and when people who have Flashificator have purchased and installed it, it will appear as an integrated part of Flashificator. That is the plan in any case. We have not come to that point of the development yet, but it should become like that.

FFC will continue to be Flash based, but when we advance to something different (that is an open possibility), our player software will be known as "The Panorama Player" (www.thepanoramaplayer.com)... what language it will be written in is still not decided on, but we will move on and adopt to new times as need demands.

If you have iPhone 3Gs or newer, or iPad2 or newer, you can view an example of our iOS panorama player here: http://flashificator.com/ios_player This is an example several days old, but it is using cubefaces that are 2289x2289 pixels in size, while NO OTHER panorama player for iOS can handle that sized cubefaces. It has been claimed that bigger than (apprx) 1100x1100 pixels can NOT be displayed in iOS devices, because iOS will automatically cut the size in half. So if images of 2200x2200 pixels are fed into an iOS panorama player, the displayed size will only be 1100x1100 pixels. This claim has been touted to be the final and definite truth, but our player showing the images in the maximum possible size 2289x2289 pixels, proves that to be wrong. No, I am not going to inform here and now how this has been possible... Easypano developers might be all too happy to steal the solution and market it as if it was theirs.... as the recent horrible case of them stealing code from KRP shows. So... our iOS player can show panos in GOOD quality, and not the 50% reduced quality other iOS players are displaying now. There will be issues for sure, since iOS is terribly limited in features and permissions, but the resulting output should be a good replica of the original project, but there will most likely be need for some adjusting, and more development on this end to make things simpler and easier over time.

Flash is good... webkit/safari panos suck. Simple as that... but for those who have iDevices, they will be used to the limitations, and accepting those as "perfect functionality".... and with our player, whenever it is published, things will be good, but nowhere near as good as we have things in Flash. That simply is not possible. Flash is the best panorama projection platform ever, and there is no logic in stating otherwise.

Hopefully this helps you to understand the issue.

[RonWed]

Hi Trausti,

Message understood!
But what I see happening is that more and more people are using the iPad! And that is a fact I have to deal with!
I simply have to offer the possibility to show panorama's on i-devices or loose the job.
I don't want all the gadgets you can do in Flash, people just want to show their locations to their customers and they just want to look around.
For me a simple solution is good enough for now, auto selecting the device: computer or i-device.
But please don't go for domain registry!

Can't wait for your message that it is ready!

regards,
Ron

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

I will absolutely not go for a per domain registration... that is not something that fits my personal view of the world. YOU on the other hand should be able to lock your project to whatever domain you'd like, as it is possible with Pano Cocoon, and that feature will be offered for the iOS player as a separate purchase when it is ready.

The iOS Player for FFC will absolutely do what has to be done in terms of delivering panoramas for viewing, and I think it will be doing a better job than other iOS players ... for sure on some areas.

Here are screen captures of what the player looks like right now on iPad2:

iPad2H.png (163.18 KiB) Viewed 760 times

iPad2V.png (166.82 KiB) Viewed 760 times

And here on iPhone4s:

iPhoneH.png (42.56 KiB) Viewed 760 times

iPhoneV.png (47.01 KiB) Viewed 760 times

I have to add that the screenshots of the iPad are absolutely not conforming with reality... on my 24 inch monitor the iPad2 image area conforms with reality pretty much, but the frame around the image has been reduced by at least 50% by Apple's software... they obviouisly want to portrait the iPad to be much much slimmer than what it is... but it isn't. Double the frame and you have the right size (if using the same monitor as me).

What you can also see, is that the viewable area is in fact full screen, and not a limited view overlapped with several control bars etc. The only additional thing to the pano in those screenshots is the top bar, half-way transparent. This is the absolute maximum possible to achieve in terms of image viewing area on those devices, and that will be made possible for the final product.

There is a lot more that is already possible, and more that will be made possible... but at least you can see for yourself that things are advancing in that area (finally). I have promised myself never again to predict a release, since it will only go wrong... so I am not going to predict anything It will be released when it get's released... that is the most accurate release date I can provide.

Trausti

[Vedder]

Thank you very much for so much information! A Question! You could make a basic application for virtual tours can be seen in all systems Androids? Something basic? Or is it impossible?

Vedder

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

It is impossible to promise the creation of software that will work on all Androids, simply because the different hardware producers make their own versions of the Android OS... Some of them disable Flash and make it literally impossible for users to install it on the phones/tablets. Some hardware which has Flash enabled, may be very low on memory and CPU power, either making it very difficult to see even small panos, or crashing the equipment when trying to view something that "should" be possible, but it isn't because of "something" the Android version isn't capable of. Other producers make other changes that disable other things... Unfortunately they are not following a single standard as it used to be with Flash, and that is really making things worse for everyone.

[Vedder]

I understand! Then, for all androids is impossible to make an application! But someone could make a list of androids who can work? A list of the models in which the application could work well! It's a crazy question?

Thanks

Vedder

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

My hope is that the final solution from us, will work on the absolute majority of devices. There are hundreds of different smart phones, there are already several different Android versions, and most of the phones that have versions 1-3, will never be updated to 3 or 4 or future versions, because the hardware will simply not be capable of running such versions. Today, as mentioned above, only 6.2% of the Android devices use versions 3 and 4 of Android... that is a very low percentage, but we can hope it will increase, and we should also hope that the producers will not make too many changes on the basics of the OS, making it difficult or impossible to run panoramas of any kind on the devices.

For instance, the Windows Phones and tablets will not have ANYTHING that allows the viewing of panramas. So that is a completely dead end. It is not possible to make a player for the Windows phone/tablet market. They have made it impossible.

[Vedder]

Thanks for all your help!

Vedder

[jnbs07]

@Trausti - these are very good discussion points, i didn't even know we can max out the resolution to 2289x2289 on ipad. phew -- i wouldn't have seen this if i hadn't browsed the support area

we're looking forward to that launch Trausti and I have a couple questions myself:
1) will it be Q3? Q4?
2) will the launch include pano cocoon's ability to domain lock such tours?
3) can we store the html + other files in our iDevice (e.g. iPad2) and play it from there using something like a browser than can play HTML offline? currently i use "Offline Pages" app

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

1. No estimate of a month or quarter or week or day or even year or decade will be offered. It will be out when it is out.
2. No, that will have to come a bit later, since every development takes it's time, and I know that people would like to have the iOS option as soon as possible, so that will have priority. Security package will be added later.
3. Proggy will be looking into that area, has already been checking things out, but Apple has just put extra limitations on local storage (incredible how they just cut down on functionality all the time).... if he finds a viable solution for local viewing, he will of course provide that. Obviously, since he is not finished with everything yet, it is difficult to give a clear answer to this (and other things). But it is one of the things we have talked about.

[islander]

Hey Trausti,
Has there been any progress made with this, or any news you can provide?
I see that its been a while since there have been any comments made.

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Still the same answer as in my last post in this thread, but adding to that I can confirm that unfortunately there has not been any time available for this very important part of development. It will resume as the first thing when the basic version of OMG (Object Movie Generator) has been built into FFC. We all need this ASAP, but time is limited, and that is out of our control.