[whatwg] Proposal for HTML5: Virtual Tours

[Leo Willner]

To throw in my 5 cents:
If tour is just needed for panos we could do a <pano>-tag, for that we  
need the distorted 360°-pano-image and do a rendering of it in the browser  
into a 360°-pano.
What's needed is something like:
+ image-source
+ image-width and height
+ tilt- and pan-angle
+ initial field of view (fov) definition
+ min and max for tilt, pan and fov
+ an auto-setting for automatic playback
+ quality-settings for how exactly the rendering is done.
+ maybe an attribute to number the panos if you wanna make a tour
+ maybe an attribute for cylindrical or spheric pano
+ maybe preloading-images if it's an hires-pano
It is not a complete list

A good link for how pano-viewing works is:  
http://webuser.fh-furtwangen.de/~dersch/PTVJ/doc.html

For connecting a pano with another one you need to create a hotspot. So  
maybe a <hotspot>-tag should be possible in the <pano>-tag or the  
<a>-element with attributes:
+ location on the image: x and y (CSS:position, top, left)
+ width and height (CSS)
+ maybe action-status: what action should be done on clikcing the hotspot  
and how long, before the target-pano is loaded

Something else needed would be a possibility to cover the nadir (bottom of  
a pano) with a logo etc. with the use of an image or by inserting a  
caption (rectangle over the whole bottom with text) onto the pano-image  
which would then render in the pano itself as circle. This is used to  
cover the tripod if you shoot panos "quick and dirty" without own zenith-  
(top-image) and nadir-image.

It would be cool if transition/animation would be possible when you switch  
 from one pano to the other. A zoom-in on the hotspot after clicking it  
looks nice

greets
Leo

Am 30.08.2012, 19:39 Uhr, schrieb Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch>:

> On Mon, 25 Jun 2012, Jes�s Ruiz Garc�a wrote:
>>
>> So far, all the more powerful virtual tours I've seen, are made in  
>> Flash.
>> Usually, these tours are created with the following applications:
>> *Easypano Virtual Tour Software*, *3DVista*, *Flashificator*, *Autopano  
>> Tour
>> * and some others.
>>
>> An example of Easypano virtual tour:
>> http://www.vitaldent.com/nuestras_clinicas.jsp
>>
>> Other examples using 3DVista:
>> http://www.3dvista.com/virtual-tours-samples.htm
>>
>> I've been reviewing whether some library is being developed to support  
>> the
>> creation of these applications on HTML5. I found a project called
>> Pannellum, which uses WebGL:
>> http://www.mpetroff.net/archives/2012/05/28/introducing-pannellum/
>> For now though it works properly on Chrome, but isn't powerful or
>> beautiful, as are the tours developed with Flash applications.
>>
>> My proposal is to give more support to this type of works.
>
> To add support for these, we need to know what they need. What is the Web
> platform missing that will help with such virtual tours?
>
>
>> We could create a new tag called "tour" or something similar. If video
>> and audio have own tag, also a tour could be differentiated from the
>> other elements of the website.
>
> What would such an element do?
>
>
> On Fri, 29 Jun 2012, Jes�s Ruiz Garc�a wrote:
>>
>> Surely with Canvas (WebGL) can be created perfectly virtuals tours. I'll
>> try to do some testing and I will comment on results.
>
> I believe Google Maps can be made to use WebGL for its street view tours.
>
>
>> By the way, what label should be used to indicate this type of media?.
>> Canvas?
>
> I'm not sure I understand the question. Can you elaborate?