Flashpanoramas - Potential for viz?

[VKNT]

Hi,

I'm experimenting with panoramas at moment. I'm using Flashpanoramas to display them online.
As the name says it's a Flash bases panorama viewer which is highly adjustable (if you know some flash )

It's not a real time engine, but you can use custom made hotspots to navigate, put videos in it, flash apps...
The developer is thinking of adding a point to point motion simulation too.
http://flashpanoramas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25

Too me this sounds more interesting than a real-time engine.

+ no need for plugins to be loaded (except flash, but everyone has it )
+ photorealistic imagery
+ no top-notch gfx card needed
+ online capacities
+ fully customizable
+ cheap

What you guys think?

Links:
Flashpanoramas home page:
http://flashpanoramas.com
A test I made with 2 panoramas.
http://www.vknt.be/forum_assets/panotools_info/sph_test

[mcvltd]

Looks pretty handy. Do you have to know any flash to do a simple pano?

Rob.

[VKNT]

No, there are some ready made samples.
As long as you stick to those, just throw 6 cubefaces at it and it works.

For a bit advanced customization, the code you need it is given, with explanation in the help files. In fact all you need to make is an .xml file to pass variables to the flash player.
With this you can make hotspots to move from one location to another, as I did in my test.

If you want a floorplan showing where you are and stuff, you are going to need real flash knowledge.

From Site
Good news for panorama photographers
I remind you that Flash Panorama Player is a product designed especially for inexperienced users; you can create a complex navigation for your panorama or virtual tour with only Notepad or any other simple text editor. Format of parameters in XML file is very simple and you will be able to copy and paste parameter lines from other working examples. And believe me, some effects that you can add to your panorama easily with a couple of text strings may deadlock to implement even very experienced flash developer.

Good news for site creators
Flash Panorama Player is not only a tool to work with panoramas. This is a simple and effective 3D navigation concept. It is possible to place any number of Flash applications on the surface of the virtual sphere or to attach them statically to any side of the player window. In whole this forms a 3D workplace where a panorama is only a wallpaper on the background, change it in compliance with your current mood or remove it at all. Native scaleable, build-in fullscreen feature, multibrowser and multiplatform (Windows, Mac OS and Linux) support, possibility to play online and offline make Flash Panorama Player a very powerful base for some types of rich internet applications.

Good news for Flash developers
Hotspot plugin has “controller” feature (opened LocalConnection with interface to control the panorama engine and the hotspot renderer). You are able to create a controller application with any version of Flash: 6, 7, 8 or 9. There are enough possibilities to create virtual museum tour with an interactive map or the game kind of “escape the room”.

[ShaunDon]

This is fantastic. I really have a problem with the quicktime player, but mostly because it's not universally installed on all machines. This could really allow us to offer panoramas as a viable service. Nice one, thanks for the heads up!