AutoHorizon
AutoHorizon is a super flexible plugin which makes your virtual tour panorama go to its horizon after a predefined period of time (and more!). Automatically finds the shortest path to the horizon (no more whirling hotspots!). Contributed by Patrick Cheatham. Easy to use and powerful! 
This plugin is no longer available. Time constraints and other Flash panorama projects prevent me from being able to research and troubleshoot plugins and functionality for FPP. If you are interested in creating your own plugins for FPP, this post is a good place to start!
You define AutoHorizon's parameters in your FPP XML (eg, tilt and pause), and when your panorama is left unattended AutoHorizon will quietly move your Flash pano back to its horizon. As an added bonus, AutoHorizon will let you define your horizon as something other than tilt=0 -- your horizon can be any pan, tilt and zoom combination you want!
To make things really enjoyable, You can also change your horizon on-the-fly... What does this mean? Well, you can create hotspots which will take a user to a certain pan/tilt/zoom position. Sort of a built-in and on demand AutoTour! AutoHorizon becomes really powerful when you use it to call a custom function in your XML, after it's done tilting, panning, and/or zooming.
AutoHorizon is keyboard aware -- meaning when your users hit the Shift key (for example), the plugin will pause and then start again. You can also change any of the AutoHorizon settings on-the-fly from a hotspot, so your panorama presentation can have any number of "horizons" available...
The brass tacks:
<parameters>
layer_20 = files/hotspots.swf
layer_80 = files/cl_returnToHorizon_0.1.swf
</parameters><br /><br />
<cl_autohorizon>
pan=20
tilt=10
zoom=2
pause=3
speed=2
quality=low
on=true
autorotate=false
</cl_autohorizon>
<!--// "on" above is different from "off" below
ON here means at start - while OFF below means immediate disposition
//-->
<autorotator>
speed = -1
interval = 30
pause = 1000
quality = low
</autorotator>
<hotspots>
<global
testFunction = "pano.tint=0;pano.tintColor=#ac7a33;pano.tint=1,400"
>
<pano></pano>
<!--// ALLOWED CALLS FROM HOTSPOTS, with examples:
external.cl_autohorizon.tilt=-10;
external.cl_autohorizon.pan=10;
external.cl_autohorizon.zoom=1.2; (in degrees)
external.cl_autohorizon.pause=3;
external.cl_autohorizon.speed=2; (in seconds)
external.cl_autohorizon.quality=low; (medium, high, best)
external.cl_autohorizon.autorotate=true;
external.cl_autohorizon.doNow=true;
external.cl_autohorizon.off=true; (or false)
external.cl_autohorizon.next=SomeFunctionNameHere;
(as in: global.testFunction)
//-->
<spot id="001" static="1" sAlign="lt" staticX="67" staticY="30"
url="files/nav/001.png" blockMouse="1"
onClick="
external.cl_autohorizon.pan=200;
external.cl_autohorizon.doNow=true;
external.cl_autohorizon.next=global.testFunction;
"
/>
<spot id="002" static="1" sAlign="lt" staticX="101" staticY="30"
url="files/nav/002.png" blockMouse="1"
onClick="
external.cl_autohorizon.pan=-270;
external.cl_autohorizon.doNow=true;
"
/>
<spot id="003" static="1" sAlign="lt" staticX="135" staticY="30"
url="files/nav/003.png" blockMouse="1"
onClick="external.cl_autohorizon.off=true;"
/>
<spot id="004" static="1" sAlign="lt" staticX="169" staticY="30"
url="files/nav/004.png" blockMouse="1"
onClick="external.cl_autohorizon.off=false;"
/>
<spot id="005" static="1" sAlign="lt" staticX="203" staticY="30"
url="files/nav/005.png" blockMouse="1"
onClick="
external.cl_autohorizon.pause=5;
external.cl_autohorizon.tilt=0;
external.cl_autohorizon.zoom=1.5;
external.cl_autohorizon.pan=40;
"
/>
<spot id="006" static="1" sAlign="lt" staticX="236" staticY="30"
url="files/nav/006.png" blockMouse="1"
onClick="external.cl_autohorizon.doNow=true;"
/>
<!--// Auto Rotate: //-->
<spot id="autorotator_button" static="1" sAlign="lt" staticX="33" staticY="30" url="files/nav/rotate_normal.png" blockMouse="1"
onClick="toggleAutoRotation;"
toggleAutoRotation="pano.pan_v=0; pano.tilt_v=0; pano.zoom_v=0;external.autorotator.disabled+=1;"
/>
</global>
</hotspots>
</panorama>
The above shows all the parameters available to AutoHorizon, and how to properly write the code in your FPP XML file. You can simply omit (leave out) any parameter and that parameter will use its default setting. Default settings are:
pan= the current pan value
tilt= 0
zoom= the current zoom value
pause= 5 seconds
speed= 5 seconds
quality= low
on= true
autorotate= false
What do those settings mean? More brass tacks:
pan= the pan value you want your panorama to go to; ie, the "pan horizon"
tilt= the tilt value you want your panorama to go to; ie, the "tilt horizon"
zoom= the zoom value you want your panorama to go to; ie, the "zoom horizon"
pause= a whole number, in seconds (eg, 4)
speed= a whole number, in seconds (eg, 4)
quality= any of the default FPP quality settings for pano (eg "low", "high"); setting this to the AutoHorizon default or to low will result in the smoothest movement
on= true or false; whether or not to automatically "go to horizon" after the first panorama loads -- useful if your "home" view is different from your horizon view
autorotate= true or false; if you are using the autorotate plugin which comes with FPP, then "true" will tell AutoHorizon to stop auto-rotation before going to the horizon (resulting in the smoothest movement), and then restart auto-rotation when done.
Patrick cannot guarantee timely email support; please use the forums here to post any usage questions. Thanks!
I would love to see a demo
I would love to see a demo pano with this or to test it myself. Possible?
:-) Well, the "Email
Well, the "Email Patrick" link above is always a good bet for how to get it...
I'll email you the plugin -- I don't have a demo up yet because it's still sort of being tested. I'm looking for feedback!
Cheers,
Patrick
And now, AutoHorizon is at
And now, AutoHorizon is at Version 1!
Enjoy!
AutoHorizon demo
Just wanted to note that there is a preview of this at: http://flashpanos.com/flashpanos_files/examples/patrick/autohorizon/inde...
Can I use this plug-in to
Can I use this plug-in to fix my current transition problem? This is my current issue: when I click a hotspot to access the next pano, I want the camera to animate and center on the hotspot while zooming in 2x. So I use the pano.pan command, using the same coordinate as the current hotspot, which will center the camera.
Problem is the camera doesn't always take the shortest path to center the hotspot, it depends on where the hotspot is currently positioned. Tilt is not a problem, only pan.
Pat L