2024 is quickly coming to a close, and it’s the perfect time to reflect on the year behind us while looking ahead to 2025 with excitement and anticipation.
Development
Perhaps our biggest news of the year was our release of Pano2VR 7.1, which brought a host of new features and the support of VR 180º video.
The main features of Pano2VR 7.1 were morph transitions and generative AI patches. Morph transitions provide a motion effect between tour nodes that gives the feeling of virtually moving through each node.
The generative AI patch feature provides good, overall, quick patches for the Zenith and Nadir which let you fix the patch directly in Pano2VR.
Before applying a generative AI patch.
After generative AI patch applied.
Not only did we add support for Apple Vision Pro in January, but with 7.1 we added VR 180º support and handtracking to both the AVP and Meta Quest.
Finally, we improved the Built-in Web Server making it much faster especially for testing projects in a VR headset.
Other features worth repeating are that we added support for WebP for both import and export, added support for YouTube shorts, and added Standard Tags, tags that are saved in program.
2024 was fun and exciting for us and we’re very excited for 2025! Some major new features are on the horizon!
Tutorials
Of course, we continued holding webinars and covered both Object2VR and Pano2VR. We were especially happy sharing the stage with the team at Perspektiva 360 and Juan Camilo Infante. Juan led an excellent webinar on how to build client-side virtual tours. In short, how to integrate programs like Google Sheets for client-side edits.
If you’ve been keeping up, you may have seen tutorials from Thomas Bedenfeld. He’s been working on a series of tutorials that teach you how to apply JavaScript, CSS, and more to extend Pano2VR’s capabilities. Sometimes special features are required for your client, and this is a great way to learn how to implement them! There are more to come, too!
We have produced a number of tutorials for both Object2VR and Pano2VR. If you’re new to Object2VR, definitely check out the Getting Started with Object2VR tutorial. If you’re new to Pano2VR (and Object2VR) and want a better understanding of how to build a skin, check out the Getting Started with the Skin Editor tutorial.
Also, learn how to make custom preview images (found in menus and hotspots) and how to create custom hotspot icons.
Note that all our video tutorials are available on both Vimeo and YouTube.
If you’re looking for specific tips and tricks, the forum is the place to go. There’s always some gem to find by Hopki. For instance, here’s a tutorial (with a skin file to work with) on how to use Point Hotpots to activate sound. This is perfect if you want to add sound bites of info to your tours.
Here’s a project using that component altered to match the overall look of the simple skin. Each hotspot opens play controls that play an audio file.
2024 was a busy year, and we’re looking forward to another busy year! Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a happy close to the year. ☃️
