Introduction
The Cylindo Curator is a self-service tool that allows users to easily create viewer instances directly within the Cylindo platform. Create viewer instances in bulk to display any product and product configuration in a gallery of configurable imagery and interactive modules.
Once implemented on the site, all Cylindo content types or modules displayed within the viewer instances seamlessly update to match the product configuration selected. Non-Cylindo images and videos can also be displayed in any given viewer instance with a simple implementation.
Once the viewer is implemented on the site, updates can be easily made at any time via the Cylindo Curator without the need to involve development teams.
Content types supported and settings:
Cylindo Curator can display a wide variety of Cylindo content types and interactive modules. In order to achieve faster loading times, the Cylindo Curator leverages images in WebP format that are 26% smaller than traditional PNGs – without diminishing quality.
Here is a list of the content types supported and the settings that can be applied.
Available as apart of the Cylindo’s standard license:
- 360 HD Spin
- Rotation start frame and rotation range
- Show/hide shadow
- Rotation prompt animation
- Pack shots (static frames of the 360 hd spin)
- Multiple rotation frames can be showed
- Product shadows can be hidden or displayed across all the pack shots in the viewer
- Dimension shots
- More than one dimension shot can be featured
- Dimensions can be showed in inch, cm, or mm units
- Material swatches
- You can select one or more product features to show the material swatches of
Available when the related module has been purchased:
- Studios
- You can add one or more Studios to any viewer instance.
*The Studio module must be active in your account to access this content
- AR
*Please note that, at this time, AR banners – previously available for the 360 HD Viewer – are not available for this version of viewer instances
- 3D model (available with the AR module)
Please note that Cylindo content that features multiple product configurations (features and options) will update across all content within the viewer instance when selected.
You can read more on how product features and options can interact with the viewer here.
External images and videos hosted outside Cylindo can also be featured within a viewer instance (see example).
Configure a viewer without having to update the code: Cylindo Curator
As per the viewer 4.x, a viewer for a product offers by default the 360 view of the product.
A viewer instance can have its content and interaction configured “locally” by the config attributes. If you opt for this option please note that any change to a viewer setting or content will likely require your dev team to make changes on your site.
With Cylindo Curator, changes to each viewer instance can be applied in seconds, at any time, without deploying new code on your site. For each product, you can configure multiple viewer instances simply by adding it to different viewer groups.
This allows you to A/B test different content types, the order of content, and measure the interactions for the same product. You may also choose to populate a page with multiple viewers featuring different content for the same product.
How to use the Curator
The Cylindo Curator lives on the Cylindo platform. It can be accessed from the corresponding link on the navigation panel.
Follow these 5 steps to curate the content of your first set of viewers.
Step 1: Create the first Viewer group
A viewer group is a template of content and viewer settings that can be applied to one or more products.
You can create your first viewer group by clicking on the ‘New Viewer’ button on the Curator page. At this stage, you will be prompted to select all the products that the content settings should be applied to within the viewer group, however you can add or remove products at a later stage as well.
We recommend creating a viewer group for similar products that belong to the same category or collection. This will make it easier to achieve consistent interactions and content, as well as to tailor the viewer experience accordingly.
On the next screen you can set a name for the viewer group. Please note that the viewer group name will appear in a CSV file containing all the information your development team requires to implement the viewer.
Step 2: Select content types and order
On the left panel of the viewer group curation screen you can choose the Cylindo content types you would like to showcase for any of the product viewers in the group. You can change the order of the content type by clicking and dragging the item in the list.
Please note that at the moment non-Cylindo content can still be added to a viewer instance, but not from the Curator interface. This will be possible in the future.
Step 3: Select content and settings
Most of the content types on the left panel can be individually configured and the settings will be applied to any products added to the Viewer group.
360 HD Spin
- - Start frame: the frame determines the angle the product will be showed after loading
- - Rotation interval: You can limit the rotation range to hide a specific area of the product
- - Prompt animation: the product spins for a second automatically after loading.
- -Shadows: enabled by default, they can be hidden
Pack shots
- You can select one or more static frames (“pack shots”). Please note that the selection will be applied to all the products in the Viewer group
- Shadows: enabled by default, they can be hidden
Material swatches
- For each product in the viewer group, you must select the specific product feature(s) you would like to show the material of.
Dimension shots
- All available published dimension shots will appear within the Curator for each individual product within the viewer group. From there, a metric unit can be specified for each product.
*Please note that at the moment it is not possible to swap a Dimension shot with another one when a product feature affects the size of the product. For instance, if a sofa product changes its height according to the type of legs, the Viewer will update the legs in the visual of the product, however the dimension lines will remain as is.
3D model and AR
- When these modules are selected to be included, the viewer for each product within the viewer group will present a “View in AR” button and a low-poly 3D model. Neither module requires any further customization.
*AR module must be included in your license in order to use these options
Studios
- You can choose to include as many studios as you wish in a viewer instance. The Cylindo Curator will help you find and select the Studios featuring the products you’ve chosen as the main product, as long as they were rendered in 4k resolution (not in preview quality) and published. Studios that were rendered in all, some, or only one configuration can be used. The studio imagery within the viewer instance will update to show the same product configurations chosen on the PDP as long as the matching configuration has been rendered via the Studio tool.
You can also feature any Studio in any viewer instance, regardless if it’s related to any of the products selected in the Curator. This allows you to create for instance a Gallery of lifestyle images for multiple products.
Go live with ‘missing’ content
Although a viewer group makes it easier for you to achieve content consistency across all the products it is applied to, you can still go live if one or more products miss some content.
The viewers for those products can still appear on your site and the missing content can be added in at a later time.
For instance, if you selected dimension shots and studios in the settings of your viewer group but one of the products you added does not have yet a dimension shot or a Studio, you can decide to go live without it for that specific product and add it in later. Another example would be if you set the group to contain multiple studios but one of the products only has a single studio published, the viewer of that specific product in the group would simply go live on your site with just the one studio until you create more.
The interface of the viewer group will show a progress bar highlighting the products you haven’t selected all the required content.
Step 4: Publish, preview, and export
Your progress will automatically save while configuring your viewer and when you are ready to go live you can publish the viewer group. Once a viewer group is published, you can preview each viewer instance on a Cylindo demo page.
Please note that the look and feel of the Demo page does not necessarily reflect how the implementation will look on your website.
On the main Curator page, you can export a CSV file for each Viewer group that contains the codes for each product, the viewer group code, and the product features. These codes can be shared with your web development team – along with your account ID – so your website page can retrieve the correct viewer instance and configuration when called upon.
Site Implementation
Viewer settings controllable via the implementation
If you have been using the Curator and wish to go live with your Viewer group, your developer must build a system that for each product page the appropriate Product ID and Viewer groupID are programmatically sent to the viewer. This information can be exported in the aforementioned CSV file and used as in this example.
Although the Curator allows defining certain viewer settings, the implementation of the viewer can override those settings if the inputs are not copied over as set within the Curator. This is not best practice as the Curator is meant to keep control in the hands of the content managers and changing things during implementation could create confusion for those using the Curator.
Therefore, we strongly advise to not control the same settings from the curator and the local configuration at the same time. With this link, you can share a detailed implementation guide with your development team. It also contains advanced examples to tweak more advanced settings.
You can retrieve a code snippet from a dialogue in the curator interface and preview how the implementation code changes according to certain settings outside the Curator’s domain.
Update a viewer
You can make any change to any piece of content at any time once the viewer instance is established on your site. The changes will appear on your site as soon as you publish the Viewer group again.
Why and how to upgrade to the new viewer?
If you are currently using the Cylindo 360 HD Viewer on your site, upgrading to the Curator version brings several advantages:
- A light-weight web-component 10x smaller than the current javascript-based 360 HD Viewer
- Faster loading times for any Cylindo visual content due to the new WebP image format
- Support for multiple content types out-of-the-box
- All Cylindo content can showcase any product configuration
- After the initial implementation, any updates made to viewer content or settings does not require further action from your development team
- Possibility to create and manage multiple viewer instances per product
Please note that additional features will not be added to the Cylindo 360 HD Viewer moving forward. Therefore, we strongly encourage you to switch to using the Cylindo Curator as soon as your roadmap allows.
Detailed instructions on how to upgrade to from the 360 HD Viewer to the Cylindo Curator can be found here.