Preloading panoramas

[Mixed]

Hi Denis,

I would really like an option or a way to preload panoramas (precache) while the user is watching the current one.
Let's say you have a pano with several hotspots linking to other panos. I'd like to be possible to preload those linked panos, in the background, while the user is looking around. And when he clicks on a hotspot, the next pano would appear imediately other than waiting to load. This should enhance the virtual tour, by speeding up things.

[jaaaab]

+1

already talked to Denis about a "loadincache" function that will do that job, hope that he will follow our wishes!

++

[Scott Witte]

I will add my vote in favor of this. I've wanted it from the beginning. However, isn't there some way to effectively do this already? It may involve writing a small flash plugin, however.

[HansNyberg]

If you are using images this should be no problem.
Just ad a simple preload script to the page, You can find several just by searching for preload images in Google.

I just did a fast test.
On my testpage http://www.panoramas.dk/moen/
look first on my first panorama for 10-30 second dependng on your connection speed.
Click on the clickspot in the centre of the map. This one is preloaded.

All the others has to load first. You will probably see the loading text for a second berfore the transition.

I just used the preload action in my Golive to ad the cubefaces.

If you are using QTVR movies it is another case.
Once upon a time when I "invented" fullscren panoramas I had the same idea. However I found that preloading movies with scripts was not possible.
My solution was just as simple as how to do fullscreen QTVR.
I embedded the movie on the linkpage in 16x16 pixels size and used the "hidden" parameter for Quicktime. Which is supposed to be used for background audio. Worked perfect.
Another idea was to load it hidden in a small frame on command by the user. I still have the page online.
http://virtualdenmark.dk/vrdjursland/index.html
Read the instruction at top-right.

Hans

Hans

[WideEyes]

Hi Hans

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. It is very exiting to learn that it is possible to preload the rest of the panoramas. If we are able to produce full screen tours where the viewer only have to wait for the first pano to load (I know that this is not true, but from the viewers point of view it will appear to be), so it is only when the viewers are opening the tour they will experience waiting time, it will increase the userfriendliness of the full screen tours tremendously.

I am still a newbie when it comes to coding - both html and xml. Would you mind helping me and other novices by elaborating how you write a preload script?

Perhaps you can show us an example - and explain the code? Or perhaps you know an online tutorial I can try to follow?

I have tried to google "preload script" but it is like finding a grain of sand on a beach as I do not know specifically what to look for.

Oh - and just one last question.
Is it possible to preload all the panoramas in a tour? Lets take your example of moen. If you make a script to preload all the panoramas on the map, will the preload start from scratch every time you choose a new panorama? Or does it just have to preload once to be able to smoothly jump through the different scenes?
I hope you understand what I mean - otherwise let me know and I'll try explaining it again.

Best regards
Morten - a Danish collegue.

[Mixed]

Hans,

I am more interested in precaching the mov files. Using a JS preloader for jpg pictures is a well known trick, but I'm not so sure about how well it works with Flash. I mean if the flash plugin takes his resources from the same cache as the browser. Anyway might worth to do some testing...

About your flash example... I'm sorry to dissapoint you but I've just tested it with FF2.0.8 and IE7 and while it looks like is loading the church pano in advance, when I click on the hotspot, the loading text appears and it's loading something. After I clicked on all the hotspots, theoretically the jpgs should have been already in the browser's cache and I still see the preloaders. The only difference is that the pano seems to load a little bit faster. But it's not exactly what I have in mind.

[dokk]

Customizable splashscreen is very usefull. Something like in PurePlayer, but customizable, where you can put your logo, or your client.
http://www.immervision.com/en/multimedia/multimedia_gallery.php

[Mixed]

dokk, are you spamming threads?
Can you explain to me what has pure player and spash screen to do with precaching panoramas? :(

[jaaaab]

Hi

Maybe dokk try to explain us that we can wash the brain of the visitor while panorama is loading LOL

Seriously, you're example hans don't work, there's still loading time....

Yes the solution would be like a loadpano function that would not display the pano in the end...

++

[Mixed]

Yes Jaaaab, a loadpano function that does not display the panorama at the end. Or something like that... this way should be no delay time when switching panos... ;)

[HansNyberg]

You can not expect that the flash viewer will load the cubes from your cache instantly. That is not possible. I also see the loading text flash a couple of seconds when I load the page directly from my disc.

The viewer has to import the files and during that you will see the loading text. Unless you disable the loader text.
It might work instantly with movies if you can do what I did back in 2001 with QTVR and include them as download hidden on the page so that they already are in the browser.
But I doubt you can have an instant change with flash and files of the size we use for fullscreen.

You can do that in a QTVR tour made as a scene where all the panoramas are in one file.

Hans

[HansNyberg]

There is also a large difference in browsers. Some browsers are fast and some slow.
My Safari loads very fast Firefox is the worst of all for seeing any type of large images. It is very slow loading and with some QTVR which contains multiple parts like previews, sprites and logo it may take 10 times as long as Safari to load a 2mb pano.
And of course your processor and memory available is also making differences.
5 years ago using files of the sizes we show today would almost freeze the browser.

Hans

[zleifr]

You can also preload panoramas by creating a spot with visible=0 for each of the sides of each panorama, so it takes 6 spots per panorama. I don't know if you can do this with a .mov panorama.