p2gStereoPhoto™ Flash Applet

proggies2go

p2gStereoPhoto™ is a 3D stereo­scopic photo display pro­gram packaged inside a Flash 10 applet. FREE to all non-commercial stereo photo enthusiasts, it affords web­masters and bloggers to easily integrate 3D stereo photos in their web sites.

The applet has a variety of setup parameters and is fully scriptable. p2gStereoPhoto™ can be incorpo­rated in a page as a simple design element (like an image), but it can also be scripted to realize more involved applications, e.g. a custom 3D stereo photo album or a 3D slide show.


p2gStereoPhoto™ Features

Multi-Format Image Sources:  The p2gStereoPhoto™ applet reads JPEG, JPS, PNG and GIF images. It opens side-by-side stereo pairs with cross-eyed or parallel arrange­ments, KMQ over/under stereo images, individual left/right images, and even extracts grey­scale views from existing red/cyan anaglyphs.

Multi-Format Display:  A variety of popular stereoscopic 3D displays gives you the freedom to design your 3D web page exactly the way you envisioned it:

Optionally, all anaglyph modes can be color-reversed, to accomodate people with a different color dominance in their vision, or for glasses with odd filter arrangements. ColorCode 3-D®, for example, is a patented amber/blue anaglyph process. Since I can't infringe on their patent, p2gStereoPhoto™ doesn't have an amber/blue filter matrix. However, by using scripting to reverse the applet's blue/yellow filters (older and not patented), you can provide your audience with a facility to use their existing ColorCode 3-D® glasses with reasonably good results. For a demonstration, put your red/cyan glasses on backwards and try scripted color-flipping in full color, half color, optimized, Dubois, and greyscale cyan/red anaglyph.

Right-Click Menu:  Any image can optionally be shown in fullscreen mode simply by right-clicking the applet. The built-in convergence slider allows the user to adjust the focus plane of time-for-space animations or correct stereo window violations after the fact. <TOP>


Scripting p2gStereoPhoto™

Most p2gStereoPhoto™ features are set by tweaking the applet's setup parameters at design time. Some features, however, can be accessed from JavaScript at display time. In addition to the display modes shown above, you can (and should) set the con­vergence parameter when switching display modes from script, in order to get the most pleasing appearance. The following examples only apply to the “flower” image on the right.

Anaglyph display: We can change the convergence to make the flower nicely pop out of the screen. For red/cyan glasses, we show the image as a Dubois anaglyph because of the strong red component in the photo. Please put on your red/cyan [flip] or blue/yellow [flip] glasses to try this.

Time-for-space animation: The yellow flower petals are the most important part of the image, so we set the convergence to focus on them. Some images also benefit from different animation speeds. Apply a fast and a slow animation to the “flower” image to try this.

Free viewing: Unless there is a gros violation of the stereo window, there is no benefit to adjusting the convergence. We set it to “0” to minimize cropping (the black bar on the left or right border). Try it in cross-eyed or parallel mode.

If you're aim is to create a stereoscopic 3D slide show, I recommend you take a long, hard look at my FREE p2gStereoStage™ presentation applet. p2gStereoStage™ is a “multi-everything” stereoscopic 3D media player, that can turn your 3D photo album into a full-blown cinematic extravaganza. If you'd still rather make your own, you can load stereo pairs with p2gStereoPhoto™ at display time. Try the examples below with red/cyan glasses:

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Installing p2gStereoPhoto™ On Your Server

Download and un-rar the p2gStereoPhoto™ package. Upload the p2gStereoPhoto folder to your server and browse to the p2gStereoPhoto.html file. The sample setup should run right “out of the box”. If you don't have a local test server, download my super-easy p2gChinchilla™ HTTP server (MS Windows only). To use the applet in your own web pages, open the file p2gStereoPhoto.html with a text editor and study the source code. As you can see, the code is very well commented and requires no further documentation.

If you want to use p2gStereoPhoto™ strictly as a design element (i.e. a multi-format stereo image) in your page, the entire process is simply a matter of copying the clearly marked code portions from p2gStereoPhoto.html and pasting them to your own HTML. Then modify the applet parameters to reflect the properties of your image, and you're off to the races… If you don't have any 3D stereo images yet, you might want to learn a method how to take 3D stereo photos with a regular camera.

To learn how to script the applet, look at the source code of the p2gStereoPhoto.html and p2gStereoPhoto.js files. Even JavaScript beginners should have no problem accomplishing this. If you're scripting multiple applet instances on one page, you want to keep in mind that the “preloader” (spinner) is not built into the applet, but created externally with HTML and CSS. This lets you fashion your own “preloader” to better reflect your site design. With multiple applet instances, you need to modify the #appletdiv and #splashtable CSS descriptors and HTML ID attributes, as well as the JavaScript AP.appletID parameters, to correctly reference all applet and “preloader” instances on the page. <TOP>


Licensing Requirements

Many long hours went into creating this very unique 3D stereoscopy applet. Nonetheless, p2gStereoPhoto™ is FREE to all non-commercial webmasters and bloggers. However, you must provide a backlink to <proggies2go>™ from any page the applet is shown on. I also require that the images you display are in good taste by commonly accepted standards. Please to negotiate a license fee if you want to use p2gStereoPhoto™ in a commercial application.

FREE: Download p2gStereoPhoto™


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<proggies2go>™ Site Map:

<proggies2go>™ Start Page
p2gChinchilla™: FREE HTTP Presentation Server and OpenLaszlo DHTML Application Runtime (Microsoft Windows).
p2gStereoStage™: FREE Cinematic 3D Stereo Photo, Video, and Multimedia Player Applet (Adobe Flash 10).
p2gStereoPhoto™: FREE Multi-Format Stereoscopic 3D Photo Viewer Applet (Adobe Flash 10).
Beginner's Crash Course In Taking 3D Stereo Photos with the “Cha-Cha” or “Rock'n'Roll” method.
RSS News Feed (Bill's Blog): Volker “Bill” Schuelbe's Web Programming Tips for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, OpenLaszlo, Flex, and Perl.
Bill's Résumé: CV of Volker “Bill” Schuelbe, Veteran Programmer and Web Designer.
Legal Notice: Publisher's Imprint.