Pano Locks For A Short While

[Elliot]

I am new at panoramas. During the last several weeks I have developed some panoramas related to my occupation.

Through the advise of other forum members I have tweaked these panoramas and brought them down to 2-3 mb. I took the photos and processed them with either PTGui or Stitcher 5.7. Created a MOV file with Pano2VR and brought them to FPP. The MOV's files are clean with nothing like auto rotation or music. Just the plain MOV file.

Then I used Flashificator .52 to create the other necessary files. The pano's work fine and even look very acceptable.

The problem is that I bring them up on the screen and after expanding them to full view and letting them Auto rotate for a minute, at that point the pano's lock out and I can not minimize or manually spin. If I press the icon to minimize from full panorama display, the pano's will not respond for almost 90 seconds. They seem to be like locked out on auto rotation at full display mode.

I am including the XML file.

Is there something else I should do. Most likely it is my fault. I am new at panoramas.

Thanks
Elliot

PD:
I have other panorama programs and the "locked" issue is not displayed with the panoramas made with the other programs. I prefer FPP.

There is 7 other computers in this room and I have looked at the files with the other computers and they all display the same issues. The main desktop is a double CPU motherboard with Dual Core Opterons, with 4gb of ram, a Quadro FX 1500. The second most recent computer has an Intel Dual Core 2.6ghz, 4gb ram and a Nvidia 880GTX video card.

We have not ruled out the Desktop having some issues. The locked out syndrome is more prevalent on the main computer. The other computers don't lock out for the same amount of time as the big computer.

[siesfor]

hmmm. that's a stumper. a couple ideas though at first glance...

I notice that you have panHome set at -200, seeing as a pano is 360 (-180 to +180), I wonder if that parameter isn't tripping up the autorotator.

Also, you said that you use PTGui to process the images, and Pano2VR to create the mov. Does a mov file created by PTGui cause the same locking problem?

You might also test lowering the autorotation quality to "low" and see if maybe the "high" setting is the culprit.

and on a side note, I noticed for all of your <spot>'s you have "smartScale" listed as "smartStale", and in the layer parameters the smartscale file name is misspelled as well; and considering it's a plugin, it'll probably require typing them all w/ the same capitalization (either smartScale, or smartscale) in order for it to work. More than likely unrelated to your problem, but you'll probably want to fix it anyways.

Also, you can remove the layer for mp3hotspot since it's called up in a hotspot (I know I had gotten error problems when I had it listed as a layer). You might try making a duplicate xml, with the mp3 stuff gone altogether, to make sure it isn't the mp3 playing that is causing you grief. (I was wondering if soundpanning might've been your problem, but I just went back and noticed that "enableSoundPanning" was misspelled too. Still may wanna try it without the mp3 though to at least rule it out.)

hopefully one of these'll be a step in the right direction.

[Elliot]

Siesfor

Thanks for your response.... Wao.... I have not noticed any of your findings. This is interesting.

I really appreciate your time. I will report in a little while.

Thanks
Elliot

[Elliot]

Siesfor

Interesting.... I went back one by one and corrected each one your findings.... one at a time I tested the pano locally and on the server. None did anything.... but changing the rotation from HIGH to LOW quality immediately showed a correction.


Interesting.... but with the LOW quality setting my pano doesn't look as good as before..... I guess I can't have it all.....!

I have been working on this for two or three days.... Thanks a lot of taking the time to read my XML and made all the comments. I am new on panoramas. Started like 3.5 weeks ago and it has been long hours of no sleep.... You as well as Scott Witte and Michael (Izoneguy) have given a lot input on issues for me to correct. Thanks to all of you.

Regards
Elliot

[Elliot]

Siesfor,

It is definitely the auto-rotation quality. I tried LOW, MEDIUM AND HIGH. As I go up in quality it display the locking syndrome according to the setting. I don't know if the program recognizes the MEDIUM, but at this setting it displays medium locking.

Thanks
Elliot

[siesfor]

hey, no worries, man.

The problem with auto-rotation, is it seems so cpu-hungry. Even on low setting (on this 2003 computer anyways) it flirts with the 100% CPU usage mark alot. With the higher quality setting it was probably maxing out the processor and causing an interaction back-up.

I have been setting my pano's quality at "medium" for motion and "best" for static, thinking medium was a good compromise between quality and performance, but if it causes problems for some viewers, I may have to rethink that.

Course, if the problem only occurs in Fullscreen, maybe you can set the onEnterFullscreen to switch the qualityMotion to low during fullscreen, but then go back to a higher quality for onExitFullscreen. That way you'll have better quality for the smaller pano window (which is probably how most viewers will see it anyways) and then better performance for those who go fullscreen.

[Elliot]

Siesfor

I use other presentation plugging for Power Point and they do more or less the same thing as FPP. They convert the graphics to something similar to gamer graphics. These method requires a nice CPU with a nice video card. I have computers with OpenGL cards and computers with gamer video cards.

The ones with the Quadro Video cards work fantastic on 3D Studio and SolidWORKS. But the Quadro cards work horribly with the games. I understand it is the way these video cards process the video.

In the meantime I just keep going forward.....:p :p

Thanks
Elliot

[izoneguy]

Hello Elliott,

So that was the problem?
Makes sense, I usually have my panos load
with AutoRotation off.

[Elliot]

Izoneguy

That was definitely the problem...... Thanks for your input.... The other problem you and Siesfor pointed was another reason. I was telling Pano2VR to auto rotate. I did the MOV file again without auto rotation.

Thanks
Elliot