Desktop UI - Creating a Content Bank

A Content Bank is a special type of layer which stores references to media files in banks or grids.

Each cell in the grid can be used to display a media file.

Tutorial Video

Content Folders

These are folders containing media files which are constantly monitored by ICE. The list of content folders are maintained in the Config > General dialog. A reference to each image or video file in a content folder is stored in the ICE database.

To add a content folder, select Config > General. On the Media tab, press the '+' button to the right of the content folders listbox. Navigate to a suitable folder containing media files, e.g. C:\Igloo\Content, and press Open. The selected folder will be shown in the content folders list and it will be monitored for new files being added.

Please note that sub-folders of a content folder are not monitored.

Content Banks

To add a content bank, press the Add Content button and select New > Content Bank.

Set the layer to be Pinned so that it isn't removed upon returning to the Homescreen.

The Content Bank contains 8 grids, each with 50 cells. A cell with no content is labelled ‘empty’. The currently selected grid is highlighted with a blue edge, and the current cell is highlighted with green.

To add content to a cell, right-click on the cell and select Load. This pops up the Load Content dialog and, from the Media Files tab, you can select one of the files from the content folders. Once selected, the cell is updated with the filename. The Content Bank layer will also display the media file.

Add files to a few of the cells and then click each cell to see how the content changes. For videos, click on the Playback tab and adjust the volume. The volume level is remembered for each cell so that you can set different levels depending on the content.

TIP: Make sure you save the workspace if you want to save any changes to a Content Bank layer.

Content Bank Geometry and Effects

The ContentBank layer has its own top-level geometry settings which enable the content bank to fill the entire canvas or just a section of the canvas e.g. one wall. Also, any effects applied to the top-level ContentBank settings, will be applied to all of the cells in the ContentBank when they are displayed.

The ContentBank layer settings act as global settings for all the cells in the Content Bank. Right-click on a cell and select Edit to modify the local settings for the cell.

Each cell in the content bank has its own geometry settings which are contained within the overall content bank layer settings i.e. they are relative to the top-level geometry settings. In the Effects tab, any effects added will apply to the current cell only.

Right-click on a cell and select Edit to access the cell’s geometry settings.

The settings window will change as below to indicate the geometry settings of the cell are now displayed. Remember the Container in this case is the ContentBank layer itself rather than the whole canvas.

Clicking the ContentBank text (on the top right-hand side) will return back to the ContentBank grid.

Next Section: Desktop UI - Viewing YouTube and YouTube 360 Movies