Embedded GigaPans with Microsoft’s Silverlight and HD View
posted in GigaPan Images, Microsoft Deep Zoom, Microsoft Deep Zoom |With the release of Silverlight3, there’s a new way to embed GigaPans into a web page. I still get a bit confused by Microsoft’s usage of Silverlight Deep Zoom and HD View, but in any case they’ve got an product (or pair of them) that has some interesting features for the GigaPanner. Have a look:
This is another iFrame solution to embedding photos in a blog, so it won’t work for those using WordPress.com hosted blogs, but if you’re hosting your own WordPress.org blog or using other blogging software that allows iFrame embeds, this solution might work well for you.
One important thing to note: If you try to cut and paste the URL from GigaPan’s “View in Google Earth 4.2+” link below a geolocated GigaPan into the HD View Preview utility it won’t work. You’ll need to take the URL that you cut and paste and append “&nonl=1″ (minus the quotes) to the end of the URL. Why? Beats me, but I followed the examples they gave in the right hand sidebar to figure this out.
[Update: Well it looked good on their site, but apparently WordPress doesn't like it on my site. I just upgraded my servers, so it may be a configuration issue on my end. I'll keep investigating...]
[Update #2: It works now! Thanks to Eric Stollnitz for his assistance.]
Thanks for trying out the HD View Preview page. We had two issues that prevented your embedded iframe from working: we turned the ampersand in “&nonl=1″ into “%2526″ when it should be just “%26″, and we broke the embed code up over multiple lines, which caused WordPress to insert “” tags that prevent the iframe from working.
I’ve fixed both of these issues, so any new embed codes generated by the preview page should work properly. It would be great if you could give it another try! Please let us know if you have any problems — there’s an email link at the bottom of the preview page.
Just so you know, the “&nonl=1″ tells GigaPan’s site to send the KML containing the actual PhotoOverlay, rather than a short KML file that just contains a NetworkLink to the real stuff (“nonl” stands for “no network link,” I guess). We’re thinking about changing our conversion code to follow network links, so you could just use the URLs that appear on GigaPan’s site.
–Eric
Microsoft Research
Wow, thanks. I just tried it for a GigaPan of mine and I really really enjoyed. The tip of adding “&nonl=1″ (minus the quotes
was really useful.
Here is my test:
http://howtogigapan.blogspot.com/2009/07/gigapan-hd-view.html
Hi Ron,
It seems there is a problem in showing embedded GigaPans!
Do you know what’s the problem?
P.S. You also see “The connection was reset” in the embedded part, right? (Using Firefox)
Hello, all.
I just wanted to ping you and ask if you wouldn’t mind finding replacement hosting for the viewer, since Silverlight Streaming from live.com has been discontinued.
Thanks,
Nate