I almost forgot to blog about it, but on Wednesday I released beta4 (Just if you wonder about beta3: Because of a major bug in the packaging it only survived several hours and was pulled back).

New features compared to beta2 are:

• Flash 9/10: Domain lock + expiration date
• Skin: “On Init” action trigger, “Change Text” action
• Skin: Prefix “%” to address ALL elements with the same ID (for example to hide all hotspots)
• Skin: Change/Set/Toggle position allow a reference ID instead of a position
• Skin Editor: Extra tab for actions + scroll bars in the properties window
• Skin Editor: “Splitter” between tree and editor to create more space, if needed
• Automatic check for updates
• Bug fix: Background color in “transformation” works again

You can download the new beta version as always from the Pano2VR download page.

I just released Pano2VR 2.2 beta2. This release is mostly a bugfix release. I hope I managed to fix all bugs the have been found so far.

The following issues should be fixed:

• Internal link to cylindrical panoramas should now work correctly
• “Wobble” effect in Flash 10 fixed
• Usage of the default view for internal linked panoramas
• Skin: “Mouse leave” event is called on hotspot destruction
• Skin editor: Better handling of the active element
• Actionscript: Cleanup should work (only if there is no skin!)
• The mask is again applied correctly
• Hotspot URL has been called also for custom hotspots
• Mac: Values haven’t been always saved in the point hotspot window

Additional features are:

• Skin: even more actions like “change angle”
• Internal cursor used for panorama links with area hotspots
• Flash: New option “lock mouse wheel”
• “don’t process output” option in batch processing

I also updated the demo tour to better show the new features of Pano2VR 2.2.

You can download the new beta version as always from the Pano2VR download page.

I just released the first beta of Pano2VR 2.2.

New features are:

• Flash 9 panoramas are using automatically the new Flash 10 rendering
• Inline Hotspots: The next panorama is loaded inside the current Flash player
• Point Hotspots: You can add point hotspots along QuickTime style area hotspots
• Extended Skins with new actions and parameters
• Designer point hotspots in the Skin editor
• Hotspot Proxies; trigger events from hotspots in the skin

Some features like domain lock, expire time, mouse wheel lock didn’t made it in the first beta because lack of time but they will follow in one of the next 2.2 betas.

To see a demo you can go to the Pano2VR Flash tour example and you can download the new beta version as always from the Pano2VR download page.

For more detailed information and comments please visit the forum.

This latest tutorial takes you through the steps of exporting a partial panorama to QuickTime, Flash, and image formats. Plus I touch on what can be done with non-panoramic images.

Exporting Partial Panoramas

Because the Flash 10 plugin is out and Pano2VR 2.2 is still 1-2 weeks away I decided to release a Pano2VR 2.1.1 with Flash 10 export. Flash 10 supports perspective texture mapping so all the “waviness” of Flash 8/Flash 9 panoramas is gone.

For the moment cylindrical panoramas and video are missing for Flash 10 and I also changed from Flash CS3 to Flex to generate the template code so not everything is tested yet, like for example the embedding into other movies. For that reason you need to enable Flash 10 export in the settings to use it. After that you will see also a “Flash 10″ option.

The generated Flash files works with Flash 9 and Flash 10. The new “waveless” rendering is automatically activated if the client has Flash 10 installed.

Other things change with Pano2VR 2.1.1:

• Proxy icons in Mac OS X
• “Recent files” in Skin editor
• Norwegian translation
• Bug in viewing parameters for partial panos fixed
• Bug with undo in Skin editor fixed

You can download the new version as always from the Pano2VR download page.

For feedback please visist the forum.