Since the release of Spinattic’s Customizer we have been working hard to make the system stable, fix bugs (some of them were generously reported by our users), improve the system and add more features. Following is what’s new in Spinattic:

• Scenes in the World Map:
  Previously you could locate your tour in the world map and it appeared with a marker on the map. We found that there are tours with scenes located with a significant distance between them. When locating the tour on the map the marker wasn’t a correct description of the location. For example, a tour of a city is not the same as a tour of a house: in the first the scenes are spread in a huge area and in the second all the scenes can be located with a single spot on the map. Now you can choose to locate the whole tour or each of the scenes on the world map. A different type of marker is used on the map when it represents a scene. The link will take you to the tour, starting the tour with the selected scene.
• Unique URLs for each Scene:
   This is a very important feature necessary for locating scenes on the world map and for the WebVR feature (coming soon).
  Now each scene in the tour can be accessed directly by changing the ID in the variable startscene= in the URL, where the number 0 is the first scene in the tour. For example this tour from Jaime Brotons has 4 scenes: http://www.spinattic.com/37/1779 we can make it start from the fourth scene by simply adding ?startscene=3 in the URL, like this: http://www.spinattic.com/37/1779?startscene=3
  When the scene changes, the scene ID in the URL also changes.
• New Pano uploader in Customizer:
  We completely re-programed the image upload system. Now we are using HTML5 filesystem API method and all the upload interface was re-designed to be more user-friendly and improve the User Experience.
  Benefits:
  – HTML5 filesystem allow to upload large files
  – Upload is by sections: it doesn’t load the file completely in the browser, causing it to crash.
  – Better user experience.
  – Remove pano during upload
  – Files in queue
  The new system also fixes some bugs that we found in addition to a bug in Firefox, reported by a user. It also allows for removing a pano while uploading as well as after the upload is complete.
• New thumbnails menu in tours:
  The new customizer came with new plugins, like the thumbs menu, which were re-programmed. The new plugin makes the thumbs centered and there’s also a thumb frame that identifies the current scene. The plugin editor also allows you to customize many features, like thumb size, color, current scene title, tooltips and more.

What’s coming next:
We’re happy to announce that the VR feature is almost ready and it will be announced during March.
Also there will be a new level of accounts: As you know, there is no charge to use Spinattic, it has been free since we launched the site in October 2014. We have found a great deal of support from the users and repeated requests to include additional features and benefits.  We really appreciate the interest and feedback here… thank you! Our time, efforts and cash infusions into Spinattic are driven by our passion for panoramic photography, and because we see a great future in the Virtual Reality industry. In order to continue with the development of the site, adding more of the features and benefits our users have been asking for to build tours, we are offering two additional levels of paid accounts: Advanced and Pro. We are hopeful that the features and benefits will meet your needs, allowing you more time behind the camera and less time in programming.

Thank you to all of our users for their passion in panoramic photography and the incredible tours that you are publishing in Spinattic. This venture would not be possible without you!

All the best!

—
Spinattic Team