[P2VR Pro4b2 Mac] Slow project loading

[Judy-A]

My 16-pano tours takes 15 minutes to load. Each equirectangular 16-bit TIFF is about 10,000 x 5,000pixels, 400MB. I’ve set up a P2VR temp folder on an internal hard drive that does not contain applications or tour image files.

While the tour is loading, something is triggering display sleep. My system display sleep setting is set at 20 minutes, but while loading, the display sleeps at about 5 minutes. It’s difficult to wake up. When finally awake, it’s only a few minutes before it goes to sleep again. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Meanwhile, I can hear the hard drive working.

I don’t think loading should be this slow. It’s frustrating to find a single typo in one pano in the tour and have to wait 15 minutes to load the entire project. It then takes about 8 minutes to publish the Flash tour without generating the multi-resolution images. Embedded cube face size is 624 pixels.

While developing the skin, I used small, lo-res versions of my images, but now that I’m checking the finished project, I need the hi-res images. All the time I saved developing the skin and tour links is being used up loading and outputting the tour. I need more speed!

Judy Arndt
--
Pano2VR Pro 4 beta2
Mac Pro 2.66 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
Mac OS 10.6.8

[Hopki]

Hi Judy,
If making a multi-note tour in flash you need to export the images to keep the SWF files size down, this said your best option is to use multi-resolution, even if you only need one level.
After you have generated the tiles the first time you can then unselect "Generate Files" in the multi res tab.
This will then speed up things no end, the HTML5 output and skip generating files is in the bug tracker so hope to have a solution for the HTML5 output soon.
Regards,
Hopki

[Judy-A]

Hi Judy,
If making a multi-note tour in flash you need to export the images to keep the SWF files size down, this said your best option is to use multi-resolution, even if you only need one level.
After you have generated the tiles the first time you can then unselect "Generate Files" in the multi res tab.

Hi Hopki,

That's what I've been doing. The panorama tour loads quickly enough in the browser.

My problem is that the P2VR project file loads into P2VR Pro4b2 very slowly.

Judy

[smooth]

No, you are missing the point Judy.

You have the option to turn off "tile" making if you have already made them.

Uncheck "Generate Files" check box in the multi res tab. By doing this the tiles do NOT get regenerated making the project file faster to re-publish.
This has absolutely nothing to do with browsers.

Regards, Smooth

[Judy-A]

I should be clear that when I report slow loading, I’m talking about the loading time of the project file, ; My_tour.p2vr into P2VR Pro4b2.

This morning the project file loaded into P2VR_Pro4b2 in about 8 minutes. ‘Generate tiles’ was still checked as I had output them the last time I used the file. One difference in the settings this time is that I have no multiresolution levels embedded.

This morning, display sleep was again triggered 5 minutes into loading. That’s not normal and shouldn’t be happening. Please note that this is on a Mac, so the the issues may be Mac related or may be a conflict on my machine. I haven’t seen issues with other software.

During P2VR project loading, the loading panel shows “loading” and lists each node in order. That part is quite quick. Then it goes through all the nodes again showing “rescaling”. That’s where display sleep is triggered and where the progress slows down. It even stops from time to time. Maybe there’s an error in creating or writing the cache.

Yesterday, when loading took 15 minutes, I had ‘generate tiles' unchecked, but had checked ‘embed’ at 624 pixel level.

I completely understand why unchecking ‘generate files’ will make the project faster to re-publish. I have been doing that in previous versions.

I don’t understand why, or if, the application would have to generate all levels of multiresolution scaling when the project file loads into P2VR. To my way of thinking, all the application needs is a preview level for internal use. Multiresolution level settings may change during editing, so shouldn’t those scaling levels be generated only upon output?

I am only reporting the issues as I see them at this beta stage, in hopes of contributing to better software for myself and all other users.

Judy

[Hopki]

Hi Judy,
Noted, and as always thank you for your input.
Regards,
Hopki

[thomas]

I should be clear that when I report slow loading, I’m talking about the loading time of the project file, ; My_tour.p2vr into P2VR Pro4b2.

Hello Judy,

Pano2VR generates the preview images on startup, but only if they are not present (or older then the source image) and no multi res images. when you save the project you should have a input_image_name.preview.jpg next to your panorama image (if the save preview image is enabled in the settings). The next time you open Pano2VR it will check for the preview file and load it, if it is present, so there will not be a rescale. If you also enable "smart loading" in the setting it will not load the full image on startup, only when it is needed. With these two options you can open an old giga pixel project within a split second!

My guess is, that you have disabled preview images or your images folder is write protected. What is your setting for "Memory Size Hint"? Have you checked the "Image Cache Location"? Have you tried to move the location to a different hard drive?

fast_preview.png (68.19 KiB) Viewed 5055 times

--
MfG,
Thomas

[Judy-A]

My guess is, that you have disabled preview images or your images folder is write protected. What is your setting for "Memory Size Hint"? Have you checked the "Image Cache Location"? Have you tried to move the location to a different hard drive?

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for responding. My preferences were the problem. After setting them the same as yours, the project loaded in three minutes. After saving and closing, it loaded again in a split second. Awesome!

Yes, I had disabled ‘Save Preview Image’. I wasn’t aware that I had to save previews with this version of P2VR. I hadn’t in the past, because I had no use for them on my web site. P2VR Pro 4 had picked up my default template file from P2VR 3 and perhaps some of the preferences as well.

I have four internal hard drives on this machine, so had set my ‘Image cache location’ to a hard drive that does not house applications or the current pano project and image files. I haven’t changed it, and it seems to be okay.

I await a user guide with great anticipation.

Judy

[smooth]

Thomas,

Why do you have a "comma" or "decimal point" in the image file size? I.E: 1,024x or 1.024x
These are normally reserved for monetary values. Don't think I have ever seen this before for pixels! Wouldn't 1024x1024 suffice?

No biggy, just seemed odd after viewing the screen shots.

Regards, Smooth