Node hotspot preview images

For VR Tourviewer version 1.2.303 and later

Note: VR sphere previews and Standard preview images currently only work with Single Res output. Check the Skin Preview setting at the bottom of this article for a preview solution with Multi Resolution output.

VR Tourviewer can show 3 types of node hotspot preview images:

• VR SPHERE – this shows a rotating VR sphere, similar to the sphere in WebVR from Pano2VR
• STANDARD PREVIEW – an image based on the preview output settings
• SKIN PREVIEW – a custom image configured with the Pano2VR skin

VR SPHERE preview

The spherical VR images are generated by Pano2VR when you select VR > Enabled in the HTML5 Output of Pano2VR.
These files are usually stored in the images folder of your output and end with ‘_ovr.jpg’.
VR Tourviewer automatically finds these images to display on the node hotspots.

STANDARD PREVIEW

This image uses the ‘forward’ cube face image of the preview images. Pan and tilt are 0.
These preview images can be configured in Image > Download/Preview settings in Pano2VR.

SKIN PREVIEW

These images are configured in the Skin Editor in Pano2VR. They are generated using a Cloner.
They are placed in the folder specified in the Advanced > Skin > Image Output Path. See below on how to set the User Data Tag for using skin preview images: preview=path/filename.

Choose your preferred preview image

The preferred preview image type can be selected in the VR Tourviewer Settings menu.

Overriding default preview type
This setting can be overruled by using specific tags in the Pano2VR User Data panel of your tour.
The following User Data Tags can be used:

preview=0	This disables the use of preview images on node hotspots
preview=1	AUTO: Uses VR sphere if available, otherwise will use the standard preview image, uses the title only hotspot if both are unavailable
preview=2	VR SPHERE: Uses the VR sphere image if available, otherwise uses the title only hotspot
preview=3	STANDARD PREVIEW: Uses the standard preview image, otherwise uses the title only hotspot
preview=path/filename	SKIN PREVIEW: Uses an image configured in the Pano2VR skin

If you use one of these tags in the first panorama of your tour in the Tour Browser in Pano2VR (not necessarily the start panorama!), the setting will be used in the entire tour. You can add tags in other panoramas to override the setting in the first one. It’s also possible to add these tags directly in the pano.xml file.

To summarize how VR Tourviewer determines the preferred preview image type: it first checks the current panorama for a preview tag, if that’s not set, it tries to find the tag in the first panorama, if its not set there, it will use the preferred type set in the VR Tourviewer Settings menu. So any settings made with tags in the tour itself will always override the VR Tourviewer setting, that way you can make sure your tour looks the way you want it to look, even on other VR headsets.

Skin Preview Tag
To use the SKIN PREVIEW images, you have to specify the path and filename relative to your output folder in a User Data Tag, so VR Tourviewer can find them. The path and filename are usually something like this: ‘images/preview_nodeimage_node4.jpg’.

The node ID has to be replaced with ‘$(y)’, so for the tag in this example you would set it to:

preview=images/preview_nodeimage_$(y).jpg

For Multi Resolution output:
If your project doesn’t have skin preview images, you can use a path & filename to a low resolution tile like this:

preview=tiles/$(y)/cf_0/l_0/c_0/tile_0.jpg

Note that spaces can’t be used in the path or filename, because you can’t add a space in a User Data Tag in Pano2VR.