New logo

I played with GIMP yesterday... Started with:

...and the result is...

(But, I'm still not sure if this will be the final version ;)

Panorama location

Are you tired of selecting the location of your panorama (when uploading one)? I admit, I hate it:

• Zoom in the map
• Drag the map to the left
  
• Zoom in the map
• Drag the map to the right
• Zoom out the map
• Zoom in the map
• Drag the map
• Select "Satelite view"
• Zoom...
• ...and so on, and after half a minute:
• Click on the position.
  

But not any more ;) At least for locations near to some existing panorama on panoye.

If you want to upload your panorama near some other panorama - go to that panorama, and then select 'This panorama -> Add neighbour panorama' from the menu bar.

Jpeg compression

As you probably already know, when saving jpeg images - you must decide jpeg's compression rate. That's because the jpeg image format has a lossy compression rate. And the less the compression rate - more image quality is lost. But, with compression rates of 85%-100% - this loss is very small.

I just recreated all thumbnails and panorama-versions of panoramas with the compression rate of 90%. The difference shouldn't be visible, but image sizes are now 20-40% smaller than before.

...and now the panoramas should be loaded 20%-40% faster.

Long urls bug...

Did you ever see a url like:

panoye.com/panorama-popular.0_0_0_0_0_page_2.1_1_1_1_page_1.2_2_page_3.3_page_4.page_7.html

Maybe yes, maybe not. But anyway - urls like that one sometimes appeared on the "popular panoramas" page. And that was a (bad) bug... ;(

Updates...

• Now you can change the location of your previously saved panoramas
• Panorama update form changed
• The howto post on panorama uploads is now completely outdated ;(
  

Ups, I did it again

I did it again ;) There was a bug with the orientation of partial panoramas. Sometimes they just didn't work. and I discovered it with thanks to cg2i's panorama:



Of course, the bug is solved now. At least this one ;)

Thoughts on partial panoramas

It is 18:47 now. I am working on partial panoramas from this morning. Make the viewer work with them was not that hard. But, orientate them is another thing...

First of all you must select your panorama's type...


...and only then orientate it. For partial panoramas -- you must find two (not one!) hotspots. All problems come from the fact that "normal" math don't work with angles... We all now that:

300+90=390

But with angles:

300°+90°= 390°= 30°

And there are even more problems... If you think about it - absolutely every photography is a partial panorama. Even photos with big zoom factor are. But they cover a very small angle.

Back to work now...

Update: Example with a partial panorama:

Partial panoramas

I am a big fan of 360° panoramas. But, of course, partial panoramas are also cool. Sometimes even better than full cylindrical panoramas. In fact, two users uploaded two very nice partial panoramas:

• Luc sur mer
• maweni

They are partial because they don't cover all 360° around the photographer. That is why the left and the right side don't fit together. Unfortunately, for the moment panoye panorama viewer don't work well with them...

But...

I'll try my best to make the viewer work well with partial panoramas. Stay tuned for updates (I hope it will be ready till sunday...).

Full spherical panoramas

Just upgraded to a new version. The upgrade is about the java/applet viewer. Now it will open in a new window, and it is bigger than the normal javascript version.

Example with full spherical panorama: Alpe d'Huez Resort. Vincèn, who is the author, has a web page SkiVR where he promises us more panoramas from ski resorts!

Yet another post on navigation types ;)

Yet another post on navigation types. At the bottom left site on every panorama now there is a small icon:

• A click on hand icon switches the panorama to draggable navigation type,
  
• double left-right arrow - switches to hover navigation
  

It is just an experiment. Do you like it?

PS. The screenshot are from kemdefer's panorama.

Panorama upload

Update: This post is outdated...

Here is a small tutorial on how to upload a panorama on panoye.

I will use a panorama from Vojak, the summit of Učka for the tutorial. The author is Matija Pužar.

Adding your panorama consist of three steps:
1. Select panorama's location,
2. Upload the image and
3. Orientate the panorama.

When you login on panoye you will see a link 'Upload your panoramas'. The application will ask you for the coordinates of your panorama's location:

If you know the coordinates - just write them. Don't know the exact coordinates(?) - use the map. You can zoom using the '+' and '-' buttons and scroll using the arrow buttons or drag&drop the map.

Zoom and scroll the map untill you are absolutely sure you found the place. Try 'Map', 'Satellite' and 'Hybrid' on the map to be sure on the location. Then just click on the map.

Here is how I found the exact location of Matija's panorama:



I clicked on the location (the peak of mt. Učka) - and that's it ;)

In the second step you must write down the title, description (of the panorama), technical description (camera, lens, tripod...), place tags and description tags (for example: mountain, church, sea, city...). And, of course, select your image (max 1mb).

Now, panoye knows the location, description and title of your panorama. Bit it still don't know where are the four cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) on your panorama. In the third (and last) step you must orientate your panorama:

First find any distinct place on the panorama (by scrolling it left/right). For example, I used the antenna near the top of Vojak:

...and then find that place on the map. In my example the antenna is just below the "Satellite" label on the map:

Click on that point, the application will ask you 'Orientate to the selected point?'. I said OK:

The resulting panorama is here:



Any question/comment/criticism ? ;)

Panorama: jump-on-click

As you probably know, there are two types of panorama navigation: hover and draggable. But even those who like hover agree that there is a problem -- it takes an eternity to make a full-panoramic circle (360°).

But not any more ;) From now on, you can just click anywhere on the panorama and the image will "jump" in that direction. Try it on this beatifull panorama:



(The author is Aleksandar Stancin).

Comments on panoramas

Just uploaded a new version of panoye. Now you can comment all panoramas on the site. There are two different types of comment...

Comments made by registered users:

Comment made by non-registered users:

All visitors to the site can comment, but only registered users can vote on panoramas.

Registrations

Thanks to all who registered on panoye in the last few days. All registrations are saved and (when ready for first public beta testing) you will receive an email with your password. And, of course, upload your first panorama(s)!

New urls

Before:

http://www.panoye.com/?Panorama:Index:default
http://www.panoye.com/?Panorama:Show:panorama_123

now:

http://www.panoye.com/panorama-index.html
http://www.panoye.com/panorama-show.123.html

Links to old-style-panoye urls should be automatically redirected to new urls. If you found any problem - please contact me or write a comment on this blog.

Full spherical panoramas

Look at these three panoramas:


Isn't there something strange on the panorama of Poreč (the first one)? Well, yes... It is shot with a wide-angle lens, and it's (vertical) angle is bigger than other panoramas on the site.

In fact, from now on -- you can upload even full spherical panoramas. They can be viewed in full splendor with the java/applet viewer. Their cropped and resized image will be used for javascript panorama viewers.

TODO list

Here's my TO-DO list for the first month of 2008.

• Comments on panoramas
• RSS for comments ?
• RSS for single user's new panoramas
  
• Let user choose the navigation type
• Google mapplets (version 0.01)
• Featured panorama and/or photographer on homepage?
• Display of full spherical panoramas with java applet
• Link to blog posts from the home page
• Change urls from http://www.panoye.com/?Panorama:Show:panorama_83 to http://www.panoye.com/panorama.show.panorama_83.html ?
• Favicon!
  

Items in black are a must, grey ones are optional.

Let's go to work now ;)

Navigation types...

I think I will make one version with support for both navigation types and let the user choose which one he likes. Thanks to Doug Aurand, Ken Warner, Mark Ford, and others for their comments about the panorama's navigation type !

Panorama navigation II

There was a bug in my "draggable navigation type". Instead of navigating the panorama -- Internet Explorer sometimes tried to drag&drop the image. After half an hour of searching the internet and javascript programming I think now it should be OK.

Now the question is - What should be the default navigation type?

Mouseover navigation
Just move the mouse pointer over the panorama:



...or...

Draggable navigation
Click on the panorama and move the mouse:



PS. Tried it with Internet explorer 6, Firefox 2.0 and Opera 9.2. I hope it works in IE7 ;)

Happy new year

Happy new year!

We were in Italy (Monselice -- a very nice city near Padova), Venezia (Venice), Padova, Vicenza, Grado... I tried to make some panoramas in Venice, but there was too many people moving around :) I will probably upload those panoramas, but don't expect too much ;)

BTW, Here is a link to the The Panoramist article with links to New Year's Eve panoramas in Rio de Janiero!