The 3D Sphere displays images on an interactive 3D Sphere using the Papervision 3D engine. Includes different opening animation effects as well as full mouse interactivity. Thumbnails can zoom in towards the camera when clicked or the camera can zoom.

Pros: The 3D Sphere displays images on a 3D sphere. You can have interactivity. A set of opening animation effects as well as full mouse interactivity is included. The sphere itself is customizable. Sphere radius, number of horizontal and vertical segments and camera distance from the sphere are several parameters that can be set to your choice. Thumbnails can be set to fill the sphere automatically. Thumbnails can be made to fill the sphere from inside out, starting from the center or outside in, from some outside boundary are possible. Speed of the elastic, bounce or regular effects for filling in, the speed and the style can be chosen by the user too. When a thumbnail is clicked, the camera can zoom into the thumbnail or the thumbnail can leave the sphere and zoom in towards the camera. Speed and easing style can be specified. The backs of the thumbnails can be images too. It can either be a custom or a mirrored image. Brightness of these images can be adjusted. You can change sizes of the thumbnails yet keep the aspect ratio.

The sphere reacts to mouse movement by rotating around the X and Y axis, with the option to lock either axis. Scroll wheel zooms in and out of the sphere. The thumbnails can be displaced on rollover. Displacement settings can be based on number of pixels, speed and easing style. Seamless transitions between thumbnails and large images. There’s a built in pre-loader as well as rollover displacement and tooltips. Pre-loader animation, form and text are customizable. Images are loaded through external XML file so SWF need not be published again and again. Includes ActionScript events can be specified. Additional values can be specified for each image in the XML to specify a URL to open or for image descriptions etc.

Cons: No particular problem noticed. However being version 1.0 you would need to watch out for problems.

Overall: Nice application to create a photo gallery that has good features and not difficult to use, this is good for a 4 star level easily.