This post was originally just a test page I set up to try out various means of displaying panoramic photos (or “panos” as the cool kids call them) from my drone. Given the popularity of WordPress (which this blog uses), I was disappointed to discover that there are very few plug-ins allowing viewers to easily zoom in and pan (scroll from side to side) large images like the one below. There are many that handle 360 degree images, but that’s a whole different story! My interest at the moment is in displaying “long images that encompass a wide area” – that’s the best and simplest definition I’ve seen of “panoramic”.
I’ve been experimenting with software provided by zoomable.ca and managed to work out how to incorporate zoomable images into WordPress posts. The photo below was taken just outside the village of Wallyford – see if you can spot North Berwick Law on the horizon!
What’s the best way to view the photo?
Note the Control Bar at the top left of the photo – hover over the image with your mouse or press the image with your finger if you’re on a mobile device.
- Use the + and – buttons to zoom in/out
- Use the Home button to ‘go ‘reset’ to the default zoom level
- Use the Toggle button to open the image full screen, the best way to view.
- You can also use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out, and drag the image up/down and left/right. On a mobile device you can pinch in and out to zoom.
The image was taken on a particularly clear day using the Mavic 3 Pro. I’ve increased the resolution slightly using Topaz Photo AI – there is a limit on how far you can zoom in without it becoming fuzzy, but it’s made a reasonable job. Once the image was ready, I uploaded to zoomable’s website, where they handle the processing (it’s broken down into hundreds of much smaller tiles to make it load faster when you’re zooming in and out), then they send me the link, which I embed on my site.
Feel free to let me know what you think – is it easy to use, responsive, sluggish…? Any questions? I’ll be doing a lot more panoramics in future so hopefully I’ll develop a workflow that doesn’t take an entire weekend to process a single image!
