This Java Applet VR player has the following features:

Overview

Although WWW based VR technology is very cool, a massive problem with it is that all current versions are based on WWW browser plug-ins, which 80% web-surfers don't bother to install. CylPan allows web authors to give these users something to look at, hopefully encouraging them to go ahead and make the effort to install the plug-in(s).

CylPan plays back JPEG or GIF panoramic images with the cylindrical distortion removed.

Now for the bad news...

As of July 98, multi-load playback performance using Macintosh PowerPC NS Navigator v4.05 is unsatisfactory owing to quirks in the Java VM which ships with that browser.

The first time you load CylPan it will work fine. Ditto the second and third times. But thereafter, it will slow to a crawl during intialisation. It will still work - it is just that the 'grabbing pixels' stage will appear to stall while the Java VM cleans up after itself.

Please note that this problem is with the Macintosh PowerPC NS Nav v4.0x only and does not affect the earlier v3.02 PowerPC browser, PowerPC MSIE v4 or any of the W95 or NT browsers. All of these load and play back any number of images without any such 'pausing'.

Other Java VR players are plagued by these problems as well. It is just that we are more up-front about them!

More bad news...

Cylindrical Panoramic VR images only. No zoom. No tilt up or down. (Although later versions may support these features). No VR Objects.

Gimme some good news!

Due to a unique image-optimisation feature, near plug-in image playback quality can be obtained from tiny (300 000 pixel) JPEG images. Which means the applet will work on slower machines with less RAM.

Unlike the other VR player applets currently available, it gives a real-time display of the panoramic image as it comes down the line. Thus users will get meaningful visual feedback that all is okay during initialisation, rather than staring at an unchanging corporate logo or featureless black, 'please wait' box.

Robust

When viewed on PowerPC MSIE v4 or NS Nav v3.02, Wintel NS Nav v3.02 or v4.04 or Wintel MSIE v4.01, this baby rocks! Use it to display one, or hundreds of cross-linked panoramas.

Excerpts from a tech page by the Applet Co-Author: Andrew Nemeth.