Manual for the JsphereMini Spherical Panorama Viewer Applet

JsphereMini is a free JAVA applet for viewing equirectangular 360x180 degree panorama images. With its 5.3 KBytes file size it is the smallest spherical panorama viewer that features bilinear rendering, progress bar, and memory-aware decimator! See here for a complete list of capabilities and a comparison with our other Jsphere viewer applets. JAVA required to view this content.   Download "JsphereMini" version 1.2.3 - by downloading you agree with the license terms at the bottom of this WEB page: jar file: jsphere-mini-1.2.3.jar (5.3 KBytes) class file: JsphereMini.class (10 KBytes)

1. Interactive Commands

Mouse:

The mouse is used to change the viewing direction (panning). Click inside the applet and drag the mouse in order to change the direction and the speed of change. The center is the neutral zone: simply drag the mouse cursor towards one of the edges - the closer you get to the edge, the bigger will the change in viewing direction be.

By pressing either the SHIFT or CTRL key before clicking inside the applet you can zoom in or zoom out, respectively.

Keyboard:

Panning can also be controlled by the cursor keys LEFT, RIGHT, UP and DOWN. Several other keys are associated with actions too as is shown in the following table:

Key	Action
LEFT RIGHT UP DOWN	Panning
+ > a	Zoom in
- < z	Zoom out
0 HOME	Zero - reset viewing direction to initial value
s SPACE	Stop/Start - toggles auto-rotate (= panning through 360 degrees in 60 seconds), default is ON
i	Info - show software version
h ?	Help - open the Jsphere software Web page

2. Applet Parameters

Name	Type	Parameter Value and Meaning
image.url	URL/file name	Mandatory - file name of the equirectangular panorama image (JPEG or GIF format). The "width:height ratio" must be 2:1.
software.copyright	String	Mandatory - the copyright notice must have exactly the following value: "Copyright (C) 2000-2001 Panopan"
splash.url	URL/file name	Optional - file name of the splash/wait image (JPEG or GIF format). The image will be centered on a white background.
view.caption	String	Optional - a string to be displayed in the status line of the browser.

Class File - HTML Code Example

  <applet name=jsphere code=JsphereMini.class width=320 height=200>
    <param name=image.url          value=thePano.jpg>
    <param name=software.copyright value="Copyright (C) 2000-2001 Panopan">
    <param name=splash.url         value=myWaitImg.jpg>
    <param name=view.caption       value="Look at this great panorama!">
    JAVA required to view this content.
  </applet>

JAR File - HTML Code Example

  your_prompt> jar cvfM my-jsphere-mini.jar JsphereMini.class myWaitImg.jpg

The HTML code below shows how to reference such a jar file:

  <applet name=jsphere archive=my-jsphere-mini.jar
          code=JsphereMini.class width=320 height=200>
    <param name=image.url          value=thePano.jpg>
    <param name=software.copyright value="Copyright (C) 2000-2001 Panopan">
    JAVA required to view this content.
  </applet>

Harddisk and CD Considerations

Best is to place the files in the following way:

  .../someDir/index.html
  .../someDir/JsphereMini.class
  .../someDir/img/myWaitImg.jpg
  .../someDir/img/thePano.jpg
  .../someDir/jar/my-jsphere-mini.jar

  <applet name=jsphere codebase="." archive=jar/my-jsphere-mini.jar 
          code=JsphereMini.class width=320 height=200>
    <param name=image.url          value=img/thePano.jpg>
    <param name=software.copyright value="Copyright (C) 2000-2001 Panopan">
    JAVA required to view this content.
  </applet>

  your_prompt> cd ".../someDir"
  your_prompt> jar cvfM jar/my-jsphere-mini.jar JsphereMini.class img/myWaitImg.jpg

Finally, some parameterization may be required depending on the browser and version:

• MSIE 3.0, 3.02: The images must be in the "CLASSPATH" which IE does not infer from the codebase attribute. Add the following definition to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and reboot:

  set CLASSPATH=c:\...\someDir\img
  

• NS 4.x under Windosw: By following the file placement hints above you should be able to view your panoramas out of your local file system without (re-)configurations. However, you should remove the class files from the ..\someDir directory and let Netscape fetch the class code solely from the JAR file.
• NS, all environments: If you want to have complete freedom while placing the code files you can add at your own risk the following line to the preferences file (the Netscape browser should NOT be running):

    user_pref("signed.applets.low_security_for_local_classes", true);
    

  The preferences file can be found, depending on your operating system, at the following places:
  • UNIX: ~/.netscape/preferences.js
  • Win9x: "c:\program files\netscape\users\UserName\prefs.js"
  • WinNT: \Netscape\Users\UserName\prefs.js
  • Mac: "System Folder:Preferences:Netscape f:Netscape Preferences"

3. Branded Version

4. License

Interested in the branded version? Click here for secure online order!