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Tihna el Gebel
360Cities today rolled out an embedding tool for its panoramas. This is a big deal: Before, you couldn't just upload a panorama to a server via FTP and expect to show up properly on a web page, like you would with a normal photo. You first had to chop the image into tiles; you also had to upload a player to the server, usually Flash-based, and then tweak it via arcane parameters or custom-made Javascript.
Now, just upload your panoramas to you account at 360Cities. Not only will they show up in on www.360Cities.net and on Google Earth — as of today you can also embed them on any web page you can edit, just like you would with a YouTube video.
But wait, there is more: Because each panorama can also be oriented in addition to georeferenced, you can travel between panoramas using the on-screen hotspots, with some neat transition animations in between. And on the panorama's home page, when you pan left or right, a little Google Map in the bottom right of the screen shows you in which direction you're looking and your field of view. You can even drag the field of view to quickly look around.
The full screen option is definitely my favorite feature, for its immersive feel, but for a real mind trip right click on a panorama and play with some of the available alternate views, such as Little Planet View or Architectural View (try the latter with a pano with buildings in it).
And let's not forget to send kudos to the viewing engine used by 360Cities, krpano, whose multi-resolution rendering of a panorama depending on zoom levels taps the same efficiencies as the image pyramids used by Google Maps and Microsoft Sea Dragon.











