Panorama Photography Forums 360 Rage

[mstoss]

Hello,

just to start some sort of discussion:

First of all I made an effort to shoot panoramas, but more and more I'm concerned about what display technology to use, how to build tours, add animations, sprites etc.

I do use Quicktime and ptviewer to display my panoramas. I just have taken some steps in direction of immervision pure player but up to now I do not use it regularly.

I feel QT a great technology and I have only tried some basic things. I know from other vr presentations, that there is much more to expect from QT than what I practicise. There are a few but good programs like QuicktimePro, LiveStagePro, CubicConverter/Connector to create your projects. Thats an important advantage

PTViewer is still some sort of standard for applet based vr presentations. Unfortuneately it cannot really display fullscreen and moreover, I find it hard to code by hand all the parameters when it goes beyond pan, tilt, waitimage and normal hotspots. As far as I know, there are no draganddrop like programs to do it. On the other hand, there are complete vrtour products out there, using their own player, like e.g. Easypano tourweaver. The latter can easily create tours but it seems that the heart of your vrtour is then displayed with a crap panoplayer: beautiful tour - bad panos - that is not the way it should be.

So, Immervision has the same drawbacks in my eyes as ptviewer - no real software to do the coding - but it can at least display great fullscreen images. There are really convincing examples out there of tours and functions I never saw with ptviewer.

So, my view on this:

If immervision continues the development of pure player
-if immervision or third party companies sell more sophisticated software than the basic tool, which is already there
-if Apple does as little efforts as now to promote not only Quicktime but QTVR

- then we will see a change in the standard display technology in the coming years.


Michael

[Bert]

Quicktime is still the standard for displaying panos on the web.... The only way this changes is when a big company like Microsoft puts a VR player in their mediaplayer or something.

I really do like SPI-v shockwave, because its hardware accelaration...

About Virtual Tours, I have no idea what the average audience appreciates....

I see a lot of tours that take way too long to load, have crappy players etc.. So my guess is that many many people don't really like them, and easily move away...

What makes them click the next pano? I think very simple user interfaces are a must. I even guess that hotspots etc, are not easily grasped by the average web audience. ....

[mstoss]

Quicktime is still the standard for displaying panos on the web.... The only way this changes is when a big company like Microsoft puts a VR player in their mediaplayer or something.

Well, it is already a big disadvantage, when a company like Apple wants me to have 50MB update for the QT PlugIn on my Mac. I do, and connection speed is loosing a bit of its former importance somehow. Anyway, I think to spread virtual panoramas as a wonderful addition to "normal" images, it would be good to have a technology which can offer easy and multiple ways to produce, incorporate and view those wonderful panos. So far, I can only see the production of panoramas as a "problem solved" issue.

About Virtual Tours, I have no idea what the average audience appreciates....

I see a lot of tours that take way too long to load, have crappy players etc.. So my guess is that many many people don't really like them, and easily move away...

What makes them click the next pano? I think very simple user interfaces are a must. I even guess that hotspots etc, are not easily grasped by the average web audience. ....

Well that's true. But given, that players do work the right way there is nothing more interesting than a floorplan navigation to view a hotel or a cultural site. You are right that e.g. internal hotspots like in the standard QTplayer where you only find a small symbol are simply not enough for an unknowing user. That is a part of what I think is a problem. Make it easy for the producer to present and for the user to get the full immersive effect.

Michael

[mhc1]

I agree with Michael,
does anyone have experience with this one:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm ?

I dind´try it by it won´t download a 50 MB fruit-stuff.
Don´t kow if it´s suitable for virtual tours though.

[dave]

QuickTime does a splendid job displaying Panoramas but in my opinion it is too limiting in terms of interactivity when used in VR Tours. All VR Tours tours that Jux2positon.com has produced (all can be viewed at http://www.jux2position.com including some small VR Tours in the Micro Tour Section) uses a Java Player and some of these VR Tours offers QuickTime as an ancillary viewing modality.

The statistics from our largest VR Tour, AroundDenver.com - with over 2000 panorama's of the Metro Denver area, indicate that less than 1% of the visitors click on the QuickTime function which is not a fair assesment because QuickTime is used as a secondary viewing modality.

I agree with Bert that the too much interactivty can confuse the viewer and cause them to leave the site. So what is the best display modality? Develop the VR Tour with multiple viewing modalities and let the end user choose the viewer they prefer. Everyone likes to have a choice.

dave

[mstoss]

I'd agree, that it is much easier to produce a java based tour. I bought LiveStagePro a couple of month ago, but I had not worked very much with it. The potential of QT is tremendous and the display quality is great. But image quality seems not always important at first hand. An interactive tour with many gimmicks seems to be at least as important to a customer. That's what I'd criticise with Easypanos tourweaver 1.3. It's a great tour making tool, but the image quality is so restricted, that I don't want to use it. It would make people believe, that it is this kind of quality they can expect from virtual tours. A kind of IPIX effect.

Anyhow, Easypano has promised to release a tourweaver 2.0 version in september and they state, that it will have an improved player! If this holds true, I would expect much from future tourweaver tours and I would probably buy it (- no automatic free upgrade for recent tourweaver 1.3 buyers).

On the other hand, Immervision has a great player, but to code a tour is not easy. Again, they have stated, that they will release their flash player (only a demo on their site up to now) before the end of the year. Together with their Pure Tools modular software package (unfortunately only the very basic modul up to now) this could provide fullscreen quality java based panorama tours.

(Not to forget Thomas Rauschers FlashPlayer)

So, some development out there and I wonder what the effect on QT will be!

Michael

QuickTime does a splendid job displaying Panoramas but in my opinion it is too limiting in terms of interactivity when used in VR Tours. All VR Tours tours that Jux2positon.com has produced (all can be viewed at http://www.jux2position.com including some small VR Tours in the Micro Tour Section) uses a Java Player and some of these VR Tours offers QuickTime as an ancillary viewing modality.

[mhc1]

@Michael:
since you have the Immervision Tools, can you just answer some of my questions ?
We have to create a "Virtual Music Group" with some kind of pano- transitions and Music background etc.

1. do they generate the Applet and XML part automaticly ?
2. Is it possible to declare hotspots and link them ?
3. Can sound be added and if yes: what filetype is needed (au ?)?

I sent a lot of emails to Immervision - but they just repiel with some kind of "standard response".
May be you, or someone else, can help me.

[mstoss]

@Michael:
since you have the Immervision Tools, can you just answer some of my questions ?

I'm afraid this is beyond by knowledge. I registered the Pure Tools mainly to follow up in the development. As it is now, even the Pure Tools basic package is very limited. But maybe this is not what you are looking for: the immervision player is highly configurable and with some knowledge in XML and a closer look to the documentation you will probably be able to create really cool stuff. Have a look at their examples in the documentation and you will get an impression what we can expect from this player! It is really amazing - but at the moment it is definetely NO drag&drop for the more sophisticated features.

May be another aproach for your project could be a flash based presentation? Flash is very good in handling all kind of audio/video and you can easily find a lot of experienced programmers. With the most recent developments in flash players for panoramas, this might very well be worth a second thought.

Yours,
Michael

[mhc1]

I run for the Pano2QTVR now.

This tools does 90% of what I need - no transition though.
I will wait and see what Immervision is about to release in the future.

[mstoss]

I run for the Pano2QTVR now.

This tools does 90% of what I need - no transition though.
I will wait and see what Immervision is about to release in the future.

oh. If this tool does 90% of what you need, why not concidering CubicConverter and CubicConnector from clickheredesign? These tools are very convenient to use and should likewise cover your needs then.

Michael

[mhc1]

Oh that really looks like a great tool !
Since they also create vitual tours !

Unfortunately they only provide MC Versions by now - as far as I´ve seen !