Chantilly, VA, May 2026
It turns out that there are a few issues with image maps.
- There are image maps built into HTML, but they are VERY limited.
- They do not work for different sized images. This is fundamentally stupid. All they had to do was define the regions as some form of ratio (i.e., a percentage of the image or real number 0 to 1), and this could have scaled with the image using a single image map.
- The lack of support for varying image sizes means that you would have to create a separate image map for PC, tablet, and phone browsers and screens.
- The HTML image maps offer limited behaviors, such as open the link in a new window or replace the current frame, parent, or window. Enlarged light box images require custom coding.
- You can pay for a WordPress image map plug-in for $99 per year for a single website. If it was a flat $99 for our website, we think it might be worth it.
- You can write a pile of custom HTML, CSS, and Javascript to do this manually.
None of those options were going to solve the problem in the next 24 hours at a price point that was acceptable.
The compromise that we used below is a fixed 650 px image map inside of an HTML iframe. The 650 px size might not be the best size for your browser and screen. An iframe is a separate view on this webpage, so you can change the iframe content without leaving the entire page. The downside is that it appears to break the light box expand for the normal WordPress images. This is why it was moved to a separate post instead of being part of the previous one.
It should not be difficult to write a program to generate multiple sized image maps to display for PC, Tablet, or Phone. Allowing normal image light boxes to function and making the hot spots pop-up in a light box like they do for the normal images will probably be a long term (or never) goal.
If you hover over the dot on the map, it will tell you the plane behind the selfie. If you click the hot spot over a yellow dot, it should open a selfie in the map frame. You will have to “go back” once or reload the page to get back to the map.
The selfie map.
The panorama map. If there are multiple images, this only shows one of the panoramas at a selected hot spot.
Using the iframe added a whole new set of issues.
- Using the srcdoc attribute of an iframe breaks something in WordPress, unless you enable a option that makes it less secure.
- The iframe seems to break the normal image light box expand feature.
- There is an odd left hand margin on the iframe that required putting it in a slightly larger container to get rid of scroll bars. It should not be this hard to so something this simple.
This at least gives an idea of what could be done with enough research, headaches, and eye poking.