How a panorama import works, step by step - Help Center

The short version

On a computer, your browser does the heavy work. It checks each photo, turns it into small image tiles and sends the tiles straight to Panoramr's storage; the panorama is in your tour when its row says Ready. A photo from a phone or tablet, or one too big for the device, is sent whole and made into tiles on Panoramr's servers.

This is what the panel on Create Tour and in the Add Panorama window does. A post made on the Create Post page goes another way.

Step by step

1. The check

When you choose or drop files, the panel reads the start of each file in your browser: what kind of file it is, its size in pixels and whether it is whole. It checks them against Photo requirements. A file that does not pass is listed with its reason, and nothing of it is sent.
With Tidy the names ticked, as it is to start with, each panorama is named after its file without the extension, a camera's prefix and the underscores (the box gives its own example, PANO_0412_lobby becomes Lobby). Photos are put in the order they were taken; Order changes that. You can click a row's name and type another.
In the Add Panorama window, several photos or a folder are shown as a checked list first, and nothing starts until you click Import Panoramas. One photo starts at once. On Create Tour every choice starts at once.
Before a photo starts, the server counts it against your plan's limits, as described in Photo requirements.

2. The tiles, in your browser

Each photo is converted into the six faces of a cube. Each face is cut into square tiles of 512 pixels at several sizes, and a small preview of 256 pixels is made, with a thumbnail 1,024 pixels wide. This is why a large photo takes a while.
A computer works on up to three photos at once, fewer when they are large. The others say Waiting.
The camera facts are read from a JPEG file. A TIFF is made into tiles the same way, but gives none.
The row says Processing with a percentage.

3. The upload

The tiles go from your browser straight to Panoramr's storage, several at a time, while the row says Uploading.
When the tiles, the preview and the thumbnail are all there, the server checks them and creates the panorama, after the scenes already in the tour. The row says Ready. On Create Tour the scenes are put in the order of the list once every photo is in.
If the connection drops, or our server is slow to answer, the photos wait and carry on by themselves.
Signed in, you can close the window or move to another page of Panoramr: the work carries on in a small box in the corner of every page. Closing the tab or reloading stops it until you open Panoramr again in the same browser; your browser asks you first.

4. The original

Once the photos are in the tour, the panel sends what Panoramr keeps as each panorama's original, one at a time, while a line reads Saving your originals: 6 of 14. Your tour works already. The tour does not wait for it.

What is kept is set for each plan. Normally it is not the file you chose: it is a JPEG made from the same picture, reduced in width, and a JPEG that is already no wider is kept as it is. It is private and carries no camera data. Keep your own copies of your photos, and do not count on Panoramr for the full-size file.

Tiles made on our servers

Some photos are not made into tiles in the browser:

every photo added from a phone or tablet;
a photo too big for the memory of the computer (the limit is 8,192, 16,384 or 23,000 pixels wide, depending on the memory the browser reports);
a photo in a browser that cannot make tiles;
a photo the browser failed on: its row says Making it on our servers instead….

Such a photo is sent whole, in pieces, and its row says On our servers with the reason while Panoramr's servers make the tiles and copy them to storage. The servers take a sphere up to 16,384 pixels wide. Once the row says On our servers, the photo has arrived and you can leave the page.

While the tiles are being copied, the scene shows Syncing to Cloud... on the Tour tab, with a spinner on its thumbnail, and you cannot open it from there. On the Panoramrs tab the picture area shows the same words and Processing and distributing high-res tiles. Both pages check again every 2.5 seconds, so the spinner goes away by itself. If the copy fails, the server tries again after one minute and again after five. After the third failure the spinner is cleared without a message.

Where each part is kept

Part	What it is	Who can reach it
Tiles	The pictures a tour page loads.	Public files, because a tour page loads them. They sit in a folder with a random name.
Thumbnail	The small picture in lists and galleries.	Public.
Original	Normally a JPEG copy of the photo, reduced in width according to your plan, without camera data.	Private. It is not part of the published tour, and no page has a button to download it. Keep your own copy of your photos.
Camera facts	Make, model, date, exposure and similar, from a JPEG.	Shown on the Panoramrs tab. The GPS position, the artist, the copyright and the description are left out.
Photo position	The GPS position in a JPEG.	Kept for you alone. Add a location to a panorama explains how it is used.

Photos posted from the Create Post page

A photo added on the Create Post page is not tiled in your browser. The server keeps the original, private, and builds a thumbnail 1,024 pixels wide, a copy 4,096 pixels wide and six cube faces of 2,048 pixels. The photo is sent in pieces, so a dropped connection costs one piece, not the photo. Until the copies are made the post shows Building 3D VR.... A panorama still unfinished an hour later is made again once; after a second hour it is marked failed, and its owner can click Try again to have the copies made again from the kept original, and an upload that is never posted is removed automatically, at least 24 hours after it was made.

Troubleshooting

A row stays on Waiting. The photo has not started: a computer makes up to three at once, and a large photo can make the next wait for memory. The row says Starts when one of the others is done or Waiting for memory: it starts when the photo before it is made. It starts by itself.

A row says Waiting for Panoramr to answer… or Waiting for the connection…. Nothing has failed; it carries on by itself. See Fix upload problems.

A row is red and says Failed. The row gives the reason and Try again. Fix upload problems lists the messages.

A row stays on On our servers. The servers make such photos one after another, and a large one takes longer. The photo has arrived, so you can leave the page and look at the tour later.

Syncing to Cloud... does not go away. Reload the page, wait a few minutes and reload again. The copy needs the server's background worker, which is outside your control. If the scene is still stuck, write to moc.rmaronap@tcatnoc and say which tour and scene.

The spinner is gone but the scene shows no picture. If the copy failed three times, the spinner is cleared and the scene's tiles may never have reached storage. Put the photo in again with Replace Original File on the Panoramrs tab.

The line Saving your originals stays. An original that did not go up is tried again by itself, and once more the next time you open Panoramr in that browser. The tour works without it.

Some of my panoramas are missing from the tour. A photo marked Can’t use, Already added or Failed is not imported, and neither is one that waits for your choice or for its file after a reload. Fix upload problems explains each.

The camera facts or the location are missing. Only JPEG files give them. A TIFF gives none, and a phone's browser may take the location out of a photo before Panoramr sees it.