Tutorial Update - April 2021

Pano2VR Package Viewer

A big shout out to Garden Gnome Software for the release of the Package Viewer app for iOS and Android. I've been using it for presentations and it's a fantastic way to show my work to others and incredibly easy to use.

After an initial play-around with the app, I started to wonder how I could add a custom preview image to the app screen.

In my first attempt, it became obvious that the placement of elements such as type, on the preview image was critical as the option, within the app, to change the Grid size meant that there is a limited area of visible space available after the resizing because the title bar height remains constant while the preview area gets smaller.

The other question raised by wanting to add a custom preview image is how can I add it into the .ggpkg package before uploading the package to the app?

To that end, I've just published a new tutorial Package Viewer - Custom Preview (Mac)

Packages preview showing (left to right) Default preview, Title Safe preview and Custom preview

Note: Windows 10 version coming soon

Packages App - Distributing Tours via Facebook

I posted a link to a test .ggpkg file I’d uploaded to a bucket on S3 and I was curious to see if I could download and publish it directly from the Facebook link. Well, it turned out a bit more circuitous than I first thought,

So I set up a new post on Red 360 Panoramas to try it out and I grabbed some screens while I was playing around. I have both iOS and Android versions.

If you are looking for the Android version you can find it here

In the Wild

It was great to be featured in Garden Gnome Software's "In the Wild" series alongside Boštjan Burger and 360imagery. Pano2VR is a critical component in the development of world class virtual tours and the team are constantly pushing ahead of the curve to bring new features on a regular basis.

Click here to read the article

360appmaker Released

23 Feb 2021 Update: looks like 360appmaker is off the air for now. I’ll try and get some information on the status of the service.

Update 2023: unfortunately 360appmaker has been taken off the market and is no longer available.

Hi,

A number of people have asked me the question, "What's the best way to view my tours on a mobile device such as an iPad or Smartphone" and in the past month I'd alluded to the fact that I'd been testing a new application specifically designed to do just that.

The new application, 360appmaker, was released today and you can find out more about the application and sign up to try it out at https://360appmaker.com

The app is available on both the iOS App Store and Android Play Store

360appmaker Tour screen

The beauty of the 360appmaker workflow is that it allows you, via a Design Console, to modify the app by selecting background colors, font colors, fonts, images, layouts, descriptions etc and make your own visually unique app.

Included in the Design Console are 6 screens, Home, Menu, Profile, Tour, Tour Filter and Contact with 4 different layouts for most screens.

Adding online tours are done via the Tour screen and several popular publishing systems including, RoundMe, Kuula, Matterport, 360cities, Veer, Google Street View and Amazon S3, are supported. This allows embed code from these systems to be cut and paste straight into 360appmaker.

For each tour you create a unique Heading, select your Embed Link platform, add your Embed Code, select your tags, add an optional description and a preview image.

At any stage in the design process you can see the results in a smartphone simulator built into the screen pages that gives you immediate feedback.

You can also assign filters based on the publishing platform as well as a set of unique filters based on your own entries.

Coming soon will be the option for an offline provision within the app that allows you to add tours locally on the device and access and view them via the app without connecting to the internet. You can actually test this now and add tours to be viewed locally on the as its fully functional, however for now the app requires an internet connection.

And finally when you want to publish your app as a standalone fully branded app on either the iOS App Store or Android Play Store the team at 360appmaker can facilitate the process using the design elements created in the Design Console.

For more information on what's possible check out my tutorial posts at https://tonyredhead.com/360appmaker

To view a published version of a 360appmaker app you can download my Red360Tours app from the iOS App Store at https://apps.apple.com/bm/app/red360tours/id1478130837 - Android version will be online soon.

Tony

Marn Htoo Myint

In Memoriam

In November of last year I went on my first visit to Myanmar. On our first full day in Myanmar we were met by our guide for the Mandalay region, a young man by the name of Marn Htoo Myint. Suffice to say after many adventures we had all become good friends and saying goodbye to Marn as we moved to the Bagan region was bittersweet.

By this time we had connected on Facebook and we shared the experiences of the rest of our trip with Marn. Back in Australia I kept in touch and Marn and I were in the process of planning a return trip, this time with Kelly, back to Myanmar with Marn as our guide. Marn was excited to have us come back and was planning to show us more of his home town.

Late tonight I found out that I will never get the opportunity to see him again as he passed away after a motor vehicle accident two days ago.

Even though it was a brief amount of time spent together, it was full of very happy moments. Marn was so full of life and loved to share his country with others.

I took this shot of Marn on that first day we met.

The world will not be the same without him, I miss him very much 😢