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Quick update on the new PixRiot build we just pushed over the weekend.
1. Viewer Upgrade
Your new and existing 360 product spins will now use the latest release of WebRotate 360 Product Viewer v4 when previewed inside PixRiot or anywhere they are embedded via iFrame code or a standalone link.
You can find more details about this massive release of the core viewer in this recent blog post. In short, you can now take the advantage of these key new features we released in v4 in your PixRiot embeds:
- New highly responsive lightbox popups with support for third-party embeds and scroll.
- Configurable drag acceleration and max zoom (previously you could not zoom further than the size of the high-res images).
- Connected "always-active" hotspots with configurable content link.
- Configurable responsiveness of hotspot indicators to better small screen support.
- 6 hotspot indicator animations to chose from.
- Fully animated product tours with configurable hotspot triggers and zoom.
- Improved viewer responsiveness and new APIs.
- Important fixes and support for latest OS's and browsers.
To ensure you are using v4 in your 360 viewer embeds, verify that your Integration Channel is Current Release (v4) under Settings -> Configuration -> WebRotate 360:
Note that for viewer integrations that don't use iFrames and simply load 360 images from PixRiot via Config Url (.xml), the v4 upgrade has no effect.
2. Video Support
You can now upload MP4 and MOV videos to PixRiot and easily share them elsewhere or even link in the new hotspot popups as discussed under #2 of this blog post. New video sharing relies on the same world-wide CDN infrastructure that our PixRiot users have been using successfully for their 360 product photography and rendered 3d views since 2019.
To upload one ore move videos, simply drag a video file(s) to a PixRiot folder of choice or use the Upload button in the toolbar to select your video files for upload.
This feature is available to all PixRiot users. For the initial launch, we limit video uploads to 200MB and plan to increase the limit soon, if there's a good demand for the new feature.
3. WEBP Images, Search and View
As we continue working on supporting WEBP image format in WebRotate 360 Product Viewer v4.1 in the coming months, PixRiot was just updated to allow uploading, viewing and sharing of webp images (in addition to gif, svg, jpg, and png we already support).
In our initial testing, using .webp format reduces the size of our test sets of 360 product images by around 20% for an equivalent JPG quality. Now that Apple has joined the rest of the pack to fully support the new image format in Safari browsers, we're committed to supporting it across all of our products as well.
In addition to .webp support, we have introduced a built-in image viewer with zoom that supports all of the image formats mentioned above. Search feature was also revamped to allow searching for file assets so you can now search for both 360 image spins and standalone assets such as videos and images in your asset dashboard in PixRiot.
4. Shareable Private Folders
Previously anything that was uploaded to PixRiot was technically accessible for viewing by anybody as long as they knew the path and the name of an asset in a folder (e.g. when you share it). With the new private folders, you now have three options to control the access:
- Public - assets are accessible for viewing by anybody if they know the path and the name of an asset.
- PixRiot admins - only user with a PixRiot account can access.
- Anybody with folder password - password protected folder (read below).
The third option is the most interesting. In fact, it was recently developed to support teaching classes in one of the most respected wild animal conservation organizations in the world. The feature allows sharing a "collection" of assets that a folder can represent using a short link and a unique password.
To do this, select an existing folder and click the globe icon to open its sharing properties. Select the last option from the drop-down, enter a password and select Ok to trigger the update. Because the update can take a little while (depending of the amount of exiting content in a folder), it works as a separate task that will run on the background so you can continue working in the dashboard.
Once the access update task is complete, click the same globe icon again and open Share tab to get a short link you can share with anybody who you want to have viewing access to the folder content.
When somebody signs in using such short link with password, they will see the list of assets and sub-folders (if any) that they can browse and view, and it may include the usual 360 product images and now still images and videos as well.
Here's a quick video explaining the entire process:
PixRiot admin can change the password at any time or make the folder public or admin-only as well as to continue adding new assets, etc.
Last but not least, you can now collapse the left "MENU" panel to give your assets more real estate as some of you have requested :)