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  • WebRotate 360 Product Viewer Integration for Magento Has Been Updated

    We just uploaded a new version of WebRotate 360 Product Viewer for Magento (3.5.5). This is part of an ongoing effort to have all our plugins to be inline with the major v3.5 release of the core product that was out last month, as well as to support latest platform updates such as Magento 1.9.x, OpenCart 2.0, etc.

    This latest Magento update adds several important enhancements:

    1) RWD design package is now supported out of the box. As you probably know, Magento has recently introduced a new design package called RWD, featuring a cool-looking, modern responsive layout. We saw many folks in the Magento community reusing some the RWD functionality by simply building their customizations on top of this new design. To make their lives easier, we now automatically install a fine-tuned version of our template under the rwd design as well.

    2) WebRotate 360 Product Viewer v3.5 introduced a couple of new viewer skins and a bunch of new hotspot indicators (more on it can be found here)! Changing the skins with our previous releases of the Magento extension was complicated and required modifications in the module files. Now you can simply choose any of the built-in skins that come with the core product via the Viewer Skin drop-down in the module settings in Admin. Please note that starting with this release of WebRotate 360 Product Viewer for Magento we now install all module's skin files under the base skin folder vs the default one we used before and this is also where a sample 360 product spin and the actual viewer script live now.

    3) As with the other modules we updated recently, there's a new setting called Responsive Base Width where you can specify the original / default width of your 360 product views in Magento which forces the viewer to scale its height responsively and relative to the current viewer width. You can think of the base width as the default 360 product viewer width in pixel that you expect your visitors to see when your responsive Magento theme is not scaled to fit a smaller screen size. This is usually the width of the fitted 360 degree product images that you would configure under the Interface tab in SpotEditor.

    4) prettyPhoto was enhanced to not have any margins when it auto-resizes to fit into small device screens. This way even on small mobile devices no screen space is wasted when the lightbox is used for gallery images or 360 product views.

    Version 3.5.5 of the Magento integration for WebRotate 360 Product Viewer is now live and can be installed directly from Magento Connect.

  • DIY 360 Product Photography Turntable with Magnetic Trigger

    We just recently stumbled upon this interesting video by Marcin Kowalski from Norway, showing his cool DIY 360 product photography platform that we think really stands out. What sets Marcin’s table apart from the other DIY concepts we have seen so far is a magnetically triggered shutter which really makes his hardware design quite simple and cost effective (e.g., doesn’t need a stepper motor, etc..).

    As you will see in the video, Marcin placed a bunch of small magnets underneath the rotating platform at 10-degree increments. The magnets trigger a magnetic sensor as the platform continuously rotates at a chosen speed which then triggers the camera shutter using simple wiring.

    The table construction looks solid and without the need for a stepper motor, we think this concept can be used to build heavy duty platforms for much large objects. We’re just wishing it had a wireless trigger!

    So please check out the video below and if you follow the Youtube link you will also find the list of parts that Marcin used for his project and you will be surprised how little it costs to put this turntable together.

  • WebRotate 360 Product Viewer Integration for OpenCart Has Been Updated

    Happy to announce that WebRotate 360 Product Viewer for OpenCart has been updated to work nicely with the final release of v3.5. This update also adds a couple of handy extras:

    Responsive height

    With our previous releases of the OpenCart integration, you could easily make your 360 product spins integrate seamlessly with responsive OpenCart themes by setting the viewer width to a relative number (e.g. 100%) in the module settings. This worked fine with just one exception common to most CSS layouts - the height of an element inside a responsive layout can't simply scale relative to its width without extra javascript handling. We had a solution to this issue in the core product for a while now, but the OpenCart integration was still lagging behind. Not anymore!

    Using our new module setting called Responsive Base Width you can specify the original / default width of your 360 product views in OpenCart which will force viewer to scale its height responsively and relative to the current viewer width. Think of the base width as the default 360 product viewer width in pixel that you expect your visitors to see when your responsive theme is not scaled to fit a smaller screen size. This is usually the width of the 360 view images that you would set under the Interface tab in SpotEditor.

    Viewer Skins

    v3.5 release of WebRotate 360's core product introduced a couple of extra \skins as well as the "empty" skin for your advanced customizations (a bit more on this can be found here). Changing the skins with our previous version of the OpenCart integration was complicated and required modifications in the module. Now with the latest OpenCart update you can simply turn on any of the built-in skins that come with the core product via the Viewer Skin drop-down in the module settings and that's it!

    New settings in OpenCart module

    Version 1.3 of the OpenCart integration for WebRotate 360 Product Viewer is now live and can be downloaded here.

    NOTE: If you are migrating to the recently released OpenCart v2, we have a working plugin for it as well. It will be posted online asap, and it's available now upon request .

  • Some Cool New Graphics In v3.5

    Did you know that we added three new 360 product viewer skins and a bunch of new hotspot indicator shapes in v3.5?

    Even though this release was not about flashy graphics and such (read more), we managed to sneak in these colorful hotspot indicator shapes, plus two new toolbar skins (round, retina) and an empty skin for your API needs as well.

    The Retina skin was specifically designed for 360 product viewing on mobile devices with high resolution screens. It looks equally sharp on desktop monitors or the new iPads with retina display & other high-res smartphones and tablets. Here's a screenshot of the skin:

    More skins are in works and we have some cool new ideas for extra hotspot indicators too.

    Remember, you can always add your own graphics for the hotspot indicators that can be anything you like (i.e., text, bullets, arrows, etc..) and, of course, you can easily customize the existing skins or add new ones as it's all in CSS. With the recent addition of our API you can go completely wild on how you present your 360 product viewer controls and the new empty skin, we hope, should help with that!

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