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Panotour - Notions - VR Mode

Logo-Panotour-Pro-2010.png Panotour Pro only    This feature is available only in the pro version of Panotour.

Intro

This is an informative page about the new VR Mode feature available in Panotour Pro, for viewing your tour in head-mounted devices.

This page also lists all the limitations and changes that happen to your tour when you switch to VR Mode on your Mobile.



Compatibility

Viewing on mobile (mobile VR)

VR hardware requirements

There is a minimum configuration requirement for your mobile device to be able to use the VR Mode:

  • Up to date Android or iOS operating system
  • WebGL support
  • Must have both a gyroscope sensor and an accelerometer sensor
  • Devicemotion event support from the browser
  • The browser should support the HTML5 fullscreen API or allow a landscape fullscreen mode in some other way

Without these, VR Mode will not be accessible on your phone.


Instructions
  1. Access your tour with the suffix ?vr at the end of the url and enter the tour.
  2. Insert your mobile device into a Cardboard/Headset.
  3. Go enjoy your Panotour VR content!


Note - on Samsung Gear VR

To view your virtual tour on the Gear VR properly, you need to create a Gear VR specific app, which Panotour does not create.
You also have the option of :

Viewing the tour in the browser or browser for Gear VR does not give the tour access to all the sensor data of the Gear VR, so the viewing will not be as smooth as viewing a tour directly in a Gear VR app.


Viewing on the Oculus Rift

VR hardware requirements
  • Oculus Rift (Consumer Version CV1.0) VR headset.
  • If you have an Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2), you may still be able to follow these same instructions to use WebVR, but there are no guarantees of stability nor performance.


Software requirements

Download, install, launch, and configure Oculus Home.

Enabling Unknown Sources setting for WebVR content :
To resolve this, you will need to enable an option for "Unknown Sources" from within the Settings of the Oculus Home store application. Fortunately, you will need need to do this only once.

  1. Load the Oculus Home application.
  2. Located in the top-right corner, hover over the Settings gear icon.
  3. Click the Settings link.
  4. Ensure the General tab of the Settings is selected.
  5. Click the toggle checkbox icon for Unknown Sources to enable it.
  6. Once prompted with a dialog called Allow Unknown Sources?, click the Allow button.
  7. Once the dialog is dismissed, the toggle for Unknown Sources should have a checkmark, indicating "unknown sources" are now allowed.
  8. Now, you can freely experience WebVR content, without needing to follow this process again (even if you log in to another PC with your same user account).


Instructions
  1. Download the latest experimental Windows Chromium build (64-bit only).
  2. In the URL bar, enter chrome://flags#enable-webvr and select Enabled from the drop-down menu for the Enable WebVR flag setting.
  3. (optional) In the URL bar, enter chrome://flags#enable-gamepad-extensions and select Enabled from the drop-down menu for the Enable Gamepad Extensions flag setting.
  4. Access your tour with the suffix ?vr at the end of the url and enter the tour.
  5. Go enjoy your Panotour VR content!

Note: if the tour is not online, you must view the tour through a local web server, for example KrPano Testing Server.


Viewing on the HTC Vive

VR hardware requirements

HTC Vive (consumer version 1.0) headset.
If you have a Vive Pre development kit, you may still be able to follow these same instructions to use WebVR, but there are no guarantees of stability nor performance.


Software requirements

You must be running Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit) or newer.
Also, ensure you have installed the Microsoft .NET Framework v4.6 or newer.

Download, install, launch, and configure the Vive with SteamVR. The Vive makes use of Valve's Steam application for browsing, purchasing, downloading, and installing VR experiences.


Instructions
  1. Download the latest experimental Windows Chromium build (64-bit only).
  2. In the URL bar, enter chrome://flags#enable-webvr and select Enabled from the drop-down menu for the Enable WebVR flag setting.
  3. (optional) In the URL bar, load chrome://flags#enable-gamepad-extensions and select Enabled from the drop-down menu for the Enable Gamepad Extensions flag setting.
  4. Launch the SteamVR application.
  5. Access your tour with the suffix ?vr at the end of the url and enter the tour.
  6. Go enjoy your Panotour VR content!


Note: if the tour is not online, you must view the tour through a local web server, for example KrPano Testing Server.



Viewing on the Samsung Internet browser for Gear VR

VR hardware requirements

Samsung Gear VR (consumer version 1.0) headset, either the white 2015 SM-R322 model or the black 2016 SM-R323 model.
Gear VR (and the Samsung Internet Browser for Gear VR) is optimized for and supported only on these Android phones:

  • Galaxy Note 7 (requires Gear VR model SM-R323 with USB C)
  • Galaxy S7
  • Galaxy S7 Edge
  • Galaxy S6
  • Galaxy S6 Edge
  • Galaxy S6 Edge+
  • Galaxy Note 5
  • Galaxy Note 4 (requires Gear VR Innovator Edition)


Software requirements

Install the Oculus Store by simply inserting your Gear VR-capable phone into the Gear VR headset.


Instructions
  1. Download and launch the latest version of the Samsung Internet Browser from the Oculus Store.
  2. In the URL bar, enter internet://webvr-enable to enable experimental WebVR support (and internet://webvr-disable to disable WebVR).
  3. Into the Samsung Internet brower app, access your tour with the suffix ?vr at the end of the url and enter the tour.
  4. Connecting Gear VR to your mobile device with any web page open on Samsung Internet for Android, will let you continuously view the same contents using Samsung Internet for Gear VR.
  5. Go enjoy your Panotour VR content!


Note: the WebVR implementation in the Samsung Internet Browser for the Gear VR is experimental. Expect performance to improve over time, as work is being done at the moment to significantly reduce current latency.


Viewing on Desktop (for test only)

If you want to check VR Mode out on your desktop, make sure you check "Enable VR Mode on Desktop" in the Project Properties.

While you can enable VR mode for desktop, it is only meant to be used for testing purposes, or demoing, but it isn't meant to be used in a headset (good luck fitting a computer screen in a Google Cardboard ;-) ).



Behavior

How to access VR Mode

Your tour is automatically configured to support VR Mode, so all you need to do is add a way to access VR Mode to your tour.
To add access the VR Mode in your project, you can either:

  • Create a hotspot with the action View Control > Enter WebVR to your scenes
  • Add a button to your interface (by using the VR Mode button already there or creating your own button with the same action as the hotspot)
  • Activate the VR Mode button in your control bar
  • Add the VR Mode button to your contextual menu
  • Add ?vr to the end of the URL of your tour.


   To test the tour in VR Mode on desktop, don't forget to check the option "Enable VR Mode on desktop" in the Project properties > VR Mode tab!


Navigation

  • To navigate in VR mode, you need to place navigational point hotspots between your panoramas.
    • Using gaze technology, the user will move from one panorama to the other by staring at a hotspot for a few seconds (a loading animation appears over the spot) and the next panorama will be loaded.
  • You can also use any or all of the VR Mode plugins available to download here .


Note: Custom view / Default view is not fully supported:

  • The viewing angle is kept from one panorama to the next, similar to keepview so as to not disorientate your viewer and offer a more "natural" viewing.
    • For this to work correctly, all of your panoramas must be correctly aligned during stitching; they can't be aligned in Panotour. For example, the center of all your equirectangular panoramas would be pointing North.
    • You can also use the checkbox "Use default view of each scene" present into the VR mode > Keep view settings property to define a new default orientation for each scene, which uses the default view of your panoramas as a new north.


Specific Navigation for VR Mode

If you want to create a separate navigation for VR Mode, using different spots, different placement or adding/omitting some compared to the standard version, here is what you can do:

  1. Build your tour normally
  2. Save the project as PROJECTNAME _desktop
  3. Add or create your new hotspot styles and navigation that will be used in VR Mode
  4. Build the tour in the same location
  5. Save the project as PROJECTNAME_vr (in case you need to make changes to your VR Mode navigation).
  6. Go to Edit > Open last exported project directory
  7. Back up all of the _vr.xml files
  8. Back in Panotour, load the initial project (PROJECTNAME _desktop), and build it again
  9. Replace all the _vr.xml files with the ones you backed up.


You can of course also use any or all of the VR Mode-specific plugins available to download here.


Changes to your tour when switching to VR Mode

Scenes

  • Only full 360x180° scenes are kept.
    • If there are no 360x180° scenes, then the tour will be empty or VR Mode won't be available.
    • If your first scene is a planar or partial scene, the tour will enter VR Mode on the first full spherical scene in the project order.
    • Any spots pointing to non spherical 360x180° scenes will be removed.

Note: Custom view / Default view is not fully supported:

  • The viewing angle is kept from one panorama to the next, similar to keepview so as to not disorientate your viewer and offer a more "natural" viewing.
    • For this to work correctly, all of your panoramas must be correctly aligned during stitching. For example, the center of all your equirectangular panoramas would be pointing North.
    • You can also use the checkbox "Use default view of each scene" present into the VR mode > Keep view settings property to define a new default orientation for each scene, which uses the default view of your panoramas as a new north / new default orientation for each scene.
  • Note about 360 video scenes
    • Video scenes are bound by the same general mobile limitation as any other form of video on mobile: they require physical user input to start playing, ie. the user has to touch the screen.
    • If the first scene of your tour is a video, then it will play thanks to the intermediary screen when you launch VR Mode, but it is unfortunately the only one that will automatically play.
    • For this reason, it is not recommended you use video scenes for VR Mode unless it's the first scene of the tour.


Spots

  • Point spots - Only those with the action "Go to panorama/scene" are kept, spots with any other action are removed.
  • Polygonal spots - The navigation Polygonal spots with the action "Go to panorama/scene are converted to your default point spot, the rest are removed
  • Video and Livepano spots - Kept but :
    • No maximize on click
    • No parallax effect
    • Require a user touch to start each video on mobile devices
    • No sound on iPhone, has to be added separately in the spot properties.
  • Picture spot - Kept but :
    • No maximize on click
    • No parallax effect
  • Lensflares - None
  • WebContent spots - None
  • Sound spots - None


Tooltips are not displayed when you stare at a spot


Plugins


Limitations

  • For Video Scenes
    • Make sure you add alternative files to your video scenes to maximise compatibility.
    • On Mobile - Video scenes require a user action to start (physically touching the screen), for each video. It would be recommended to avoid video scenes in VR Mode if it's planned for mobile viewing.
    • See Video Scene limitations and Mobile Limitations.
  • For Video Spots and Livepanos
    • On Mobile - Videos require a user action to start (physically touching the screen), for each video. It would be recommended to avoid videos in VR Mode if it's planned for mobile viewing.
    • On Desktop with HMDs - There shouldn't be any issues viewing your video spots



Troubleshooting VR Mode

"VR Mode is unavailable on your device" or the VR Mode button does not show

There can be several reasons for this message:

  • If you are testing on Desktop, check the option in the project properties to allow testing of VR Mode
  • If your tour does not contain any full spherical 360x180° scenes, your VR Mode tour will be empty. See VR Mode Documentation > scenes
  • If your browser or device does not meet the requirements to use VR Mode. See VR Mode Documentation > Compatibility


Some of my hotspots have gone missing!

Only point hotspots with the action "go to panorama or group" are kept in VR Mode (polygons with this action are also kept but replaced with the default point spot style). Any other action hotspots are removed.
If your hotspot linked to a panorama that is not supported in VR Mode (planar panorama or partial spherical panorama) it will also be removed.


Other hotspots that are kept:

  • Picture hotspots (but with no action, and no zoom of the image)
  • Video hotspots (requires a physical user touch of the screen to launch due to general mobile limiations)


See VR Mode Documentation > Changes to your tour when switching to VR Mode >Spots


Some of my panoramas or scenes have disappeared / can't be accessed in VR Mode!

Only full spherical 360x180° scenes are kept in VR Mode, if you have any planar or partial spherical panoramas in your tour they are removed in this mode.
If you don't have any full equirectangular panoramas in your project then you will not be able to use VR Mode.


My panorama is pointing in the wrong direction

For VR Mode to work correctly, your images need to have been aligned correctly from the get-go during stitching (for example with the center always pointing north), or use the default view of your images as a new north by checking the appropriate parameter in the Project Properties > VR Mode > Keep view settings.


My interface is gone (control bars, graphic elements, other plugins)

See My plugins have gone missing in VR Mode !


My plugins have gone missing in VR Mode !

In VR Mode, all plugins are removed from the project except VR Mode specific ones as they are not compatible with this mode.

See which plugins are compatible in the VR Mode Documentation > Plugins


The screen doesn't divide into HMD mode

Don't forget to activate screen rotation on your mobile device.


VR Mode doesn't work with Panotour Viewer

Panotour Viewer uses your device's native browser to view the tour, and this native browser may not support the WebVR api, VR Mode is deactivated is this is the case. Since Panotour Viewer is only a testing tool this is not an issue as virtual tours are meant to be hosted online.

Also make sure your mobile meets all the requirements for using VR Mode at all, listed here.


VR Mode doesn't work on my mobile.

Make sure your mobile meets all the requirements for using VR Mode at all, listed here.













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