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Immersive
Technologies
This
page is devoted to Immersive Technologies, which
includes the photographic
technologies
(QuickTime VR, IPIX, Reality Studio, etc),
3D
technologies
(VRML, QuickDraw 3D, etc.) as well as 3D modeling
tools.
The individual technologies are listed
below.
Photographic
Technologies
The
immersive technologies listed here all use
panoramic photographs to create the illusion of
exploring a 3D space. A playback window displays a
section of the image, and the user can then click
and drag to "look around" the scene. These
technologies warp the photograph to maximise the
illusion that the user is looking up and down
within the real world rather than just scrolling
about within a flat panoramic image.
Of these technologies, only IPIX and
SmoothMove provides spherical projection
(the original image covers the entire Field of View
so that the user can look up and see the
ceiling.)
This difference not withstanding, most of the
differences between these technologies are in
various additional features (such as Objects,
linking, support available in third party tools,
and the functionality of the stitching
tools.)
Creating
Panoramic images
Most
of these technologies require a panoramic image to
produce the scene that the user will explore. While
they also support partial panoramas (less than 360
degrees around) most of the time a full panorama
will be created. There's at least three different
ways of creating a panorama;
- use
a fish-eye 180 degree lens and "stitch" the two
photographs together
only IPIX
uses this technigue
- use
a panoramic camera
these cameras are expensive and produce unusual
negatives that may be difficult to
scan
- use
a panoramic lens
See our review
of the Be Here Portal
1
lens
- use
a regular camera, wide angle lens and tripod and
take multiple pictures
this requires using a software application
to "stitch" the pictures together into a
panorama.
Once you include the cost and time of processing
this method can get expensive if you are
creating lots of panoramas.
There are four stitching applications
available:
- Apple's
QuickTime VR Authoring Studio
- Rounadabout's
Nodestar
- Live
Pictures PhotoVista
- Spin
Panorama
Other
Stitchers
Enroute
Imaging's QuickStitch 360 for Mac/Windows,
panorama stitching software. QuickStitch 360
automatically combines overlapping photos into
panoramic images up to 360 degrees.
<www.enroute.com>
Panavue's
Visual Stitch, for Windows 95/NT. Their
stitcher is supposed to be particularly adept with
very large images.Demo versions of these programs
can be downloaded from their website.
<www.panavue.com>
Other
Tips:
Why
limit QuickTime VR (or any immersive
technology) to land based subjects? The
JASON distance learning project took QTVR
photograhers to Bermuda and now you can visit a
page which includes tips for taking underwater
panoramas.
The project is sponsored by EDS
<www.eds.com
journal article "Shooting
QTVR">
Want
to create a QuickTime VR panoramic scene by
painting it rather than using 3D software or
shooting a panoramic photo? André Plante has
a VR Painting Tutorial and demonstration file at
his website. It looks like a lot of work, but some
of the techniques might be useful when manipulating
existing scenes.
<Web page: "VR
Gallery">
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Feb
22, 99
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Infinite
Pictures and Kaidan have
announced the SmoothMove Spherical
Photo Solution, a product that allows
users to photograph a scene in as few as
ten photos and seam them together into a
full spherical high-resolution panorama.
The SmoothMove Spherical Photo Solution
includes the Kaidan QuickPan Spherical
Tripod Head and the Infinite Pictures
SmoothMove Photo Suite.
<www.kaidan.com>
<www.smoothmove.com>
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Feb
22, 99
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VR
Toolbox will begin shipping Windows
versions of VR ObjectWorx, VR
PanoWorx and VR SceneWorx, the
second week of March 1999. This spring,
the company will offer its
yet-to-be-released suite of tools, The
VR Worx, for both Macintosh and
Windows platforms.
<www.vrtoolbox.com>
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Feb
19, 99
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Immersive
Media Company and Enroute
Imaging have announced a set of
products that allow the production of
fully immersive spherical video of any
location or event.
The
product includes Immersive Media's
RoundAbout Video System DODECA 1000
camera which features an eleven video
camera system with video rates of 30 fps
and broadcast quality resolution.
No
pricing was announced.
<www.enroute.com>
<www.immersivemedia.com>
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Feb
19, 99
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Enroute
Imaging PowerStitch is
describes as full-featured panorama
software for professionals. PowerStitch
features include:
- Manual
or automatic lens parameter
settings
- Auto-correlation
or manual (user-assisted) placement
- Perspective
and cylindrical (pan-head) projection
- Blend-only
mode for making collages
- Low-resolution
preview stitching for quick previews
- Infinite
workspace and image zoom
- Image
manipulation tools including undo,
crop, resize, brightness, gamma
correction, contrast etc
PowerStitch
will be available in April 1999 for
$399.
<www.enroute.com>
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Feb
19, 99
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Be
Here Corporation has started a
Certified Media Developer program
designed to link web site developers,
multimedia producers and photographers
with enterprises that wish to incorporate
immersive images in their web site.
<www.BeHere.com>
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Feb
16, 99
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Virtus
OpenSpace 3D is an application and
Xtra for Director that adds interactive 3D
capabilities to Macromedia
Director.
<Multimedia Musings: 3D
in
Director>
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Quicktime
VR is perhaps the best-known technology. It is
widely supported and there are some excellent tools
for building panoramas and objects (though the best
tools are only available for the Macintosh.)
QuickTime supports both panoramas and object
movies.
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Michael
reviewed Apple's QuickTime VR Authoring
Studio for NewMedia May 5, 1998
<www.newmedia.com
review "Live
Picture Reality
Studio">
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Apple's
QuickTime web site
<www.apple.com/quicktime/qtvr/index.html>
Download the web viewer, as well as see
sample galleries.
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Roundabout
Logic web site <www.roundaboutlogic.com>
makes the panoramic stitcher tool
Nodester and the object builder
Widgitizer.
Aug
24
MacWeek reports that there is a
legal dispute between Roundabout Logic
Inc. and VR Toolbox Inc over
the distribution of the QuickTime VR
authoring tools that are best known as
Nodester and Widgetizer. VR
Toolbox Inc, which it appears was set up
by the original developer of the tools is
selling them as VR PanoWorx and
VR ObjectWorx.
<www.macweek.com
news "QTVR
vendors in legal
battle">
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ConVRter
Pro a shareware utility that allows
you to manipulate certain properties of
finished QTVR movies, converts
between v1 and v2 QTVR movies, and embeds
custom qtvr cursors in your v2 movies now
allows the setting of fov, pan and tilt in
degrees of angle, as well as other
enhancements.
<www.vrtools.com/support/>
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Want
to fix a QuickTime VR file without going
back to the original source files?
PanoTouch, is a tool for editing,
adding content to, and retouching
QuickTime VR panoramas developed by
AdessoSoft. The principals of
AdessoSoft are all former QuickTime VR
team members and comprise Richard Mander,
Bud Smith, John Murata, and Yalin Xiong.
Panotouch
is a plug-in for Photoshop that lets you
open a QuickTime VR file, select an area
of the panorama and it will "dewarp" the
image. You can then edit the image and
save back out to QuickTime VR.
The
tool is available as a pre-release version
for $99.
<www.adessosoft.com>
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Squamish
Media Group has released soundsaVR
1.1, which embeds directional stereo
sound in QuickTime VR movies. The new
release supports 'Fast Start' streaming
and fixes incompatabilities with some
types of movies. The limited introductory
price is US $70.
<www.smgVR.com>
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Reality
Studio from Live Picture grew out of Real
Space, which itself was developed by one of the
originators of QuickTime VR. Reality Studio
supports photo panoramas and objects, but it also
supports VRML (.wrl) files inside panoramas. It's
the easiest technology (at the moment) for creating
panoramas with sprites within the
panorama.
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Michael
reviewed Reality Studio for
NewMedia May 5, 1998
<www.newmedia.com
review "Live
Picture Reality
Studio">
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Live
Pictures web site <www.livepicture.com>
Download the web viewer, as well as see
sample galleries.
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Live
Picture has two lightweight Java
viewers that let online user view
Reality Studio objects and 360-degree
panoramas. The
viewers work with any Java-enabled
browser, and average 35K in size.
They add to the capabilities of Live
Picture's existing Java viewer, which
allows users to view zoomable 2D images
without plug-ins.
<www.livepicture.com/download/>
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Surround
Video was developed by Black Diamond
consulting, and was originally developed for
Microsoft, who then licensed it back to Black
Diamond.
Surround Video Freestyle Suite 1.0 was released in
July 1998. This featured version 3.0 of Surrond
Video, plus new tools for creating object movies
and for adding sound to movies.
Surround
Video Freestyle Suite 1.0 includes: Surround
Video 3.0 Editor, Rotate This! 1.0 and
Hear This! 1.0. Rotate This! creates object
movies from jpg or bmp images and supports hotspots
with text. Objects can be displayed on panoramas or
on other objects. Hear This! adds multiple sounds
to images and offers individual volume control for
each sound.
The
authoring tool is Windows only, but browser plugins
for Mac and PC are available.
Surround
Video Freestyle Suite costs $199.00. A Web
Certificate, required for additional domains
hosting Surround Video costs $99
IPIX
is unique in that they offer a stitcher that takes
two images taken with a 180 degree fish-eye lens
and stitches the two halves together to create a
single panorama that covers the entire field of
view. Their routines for doing this are protected
by patent
Of special note, IPIX released (July '98) a
Macintosh version of the IPIX authoring tool.
Pros: Only requires two images. You can see
the ceiling!
Cons: Licensing is based per image (from $25
per node). Lighting the scenes may be a problem.
Lower resolution (though probably not a problem for
the web)
IPIX
Mac Wizard runs on all PowerPC configurations with
a minimum of 64MB of RAM. The Mac Wizard is priced
at $349.95
Tools
that may be used with more than one
technology.
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QuickStitch
360 from Enroute Imaging is a
panorama stitching application which
automatically combines overlapping photos
into panoramic images up to 360 degrees.
The previous Enroute QuickStitch
product stitches a grid of up to 6 x 6
images. Users can output their panoramas
to a JPG, BMP or QuickTime VR movie.
QuickStitch 360 for Windows 95/98 and
Power Mac for $69.96 SRP, and through OEM
bundles with digital cameras (including
Ricoh's 4300) and Velbon's VR tripod head.
<www.enroute.com>
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Canadian
company Panavue's panoramic
stitcher, Visual Stitch ($100US),
for Windows 95/NT. Their stitcher is
supposed to be particularly adept with
very large images.
The company also offers Visual Stitch
SC ($40US), which is designed for
those who want to scan oversized images
with their scanner and then stitch the
parts together.
Demo versions of these programs can be
downloaded from their website.
<www.panavue.com>
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Kodak
, Kaidan and Live Pictures are offering
kits featuring combinations of Kodak
digital cameras, Kaidan tripod heads, and
Live Pictures PhotoVista and Reality
Studio.
- Interactive
Imaging Solution for the DC220 Pro
Edition Camera $525 (camera sold
separately)
Includes custom molded panoramic tripod
head and a trial version of Reality
Studio and a new version of
PhotoVista.
- Interactive
Imaging Solution for the DC260 Pro
Edition Camera $525 (camera sold
separately)
Same as above with tripod head for
DC260.
- Interactive
Imaging SLR Solution $1,195
will feature the Kaidan QuickPan Magnum
QPX-2B panoramic tripod head for Kodak
single lens reflex cameras, including
the DCS 315, DCS 4XX and 5XX series.
Includes PhotoVista and a full version
of Reality Studio.
- Interactive
Imaging Studio (Pricing of this kit has
yet to be announced.)
features a new Kaidan motorized
turntable.
<www.kodak.com>
<www.kaidan.com>
<www.livepicture.com>
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Videobrush
panoramic software application
VideoBrush Panorama is the only
application available (that we know of)
that can take a video panoramic sequence
and stitch together the frames to create a
panorama. It can create QuickTime VR as
well as Infinite Pictures SmoothMove
(.pan) and Live Picture Realspace (.ivr)
files. Panorama
2.0 costs $59.99. You can doanload a demo
from their website.
<www.videobrush.com>
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CycloVision's
ParaShot, is a one-shot 360°
digital imaging attachment.
The
ParaShot looks cool! Similar to the Be
Here Portal 1 lens, (which we recently
played with) but at a tenth the price. The
Parashot incorporates 360° imaging
optics and unwrapping software, that is
compatible with Agfa's Photo Genie. Like
the Portal 1, the ParaShot captures a
donut shaped image (ParaFrame), which is
then unwrapped using the ParaViewer
software. With the ParaViewer software,
users can navigate the 360° image
with pan, tilt and zoom capabilities on
the Web or within new media applications
with the click of a mouse.
The
ParaShot has a list price of $995. Example
images can be found at CycloVisions'
website.
<www.cyclovision.com>
<Our review of the Be
Here Portal 1
lens>
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Be
Here Corporation has introduced the
Be Here Portal S1 Plus, a
second-generation version of their
360-degree lens system that is suitable
for stopping action in environments with
motion. The Portal S1 Plus costs $4,995
and is Nikon and Canon EOS
mount-compatible and offers a lighter
weight design for improved ease-of-use and
mobility.
Be
Here's Portal S1 Plus features an improved
optical design over the original Portal
S1, resulting in improved image quality
and a higher speed f/8 lens. The Portal S1
Plus is capable of operating with a camera
at shutter speeds up to 1/500th of a
second - a speed suitable for stopping
action in environments with motion.
<www.BeHere.com>
<Review of Be
Here S1
lens>
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Tips
for creating photographic immersive
environments.
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If
you're looking for a digital camera the
Nikon CoolPix 900 has been
receiving some very positive reviews.
Of particular interest for those producing
sequences of images for stitching into
panoramas, the 900 includes an exposure
lock which will look the exposure setting
used for the first image in a sequence and
use it for the rest.
NOTE: Some people actually question
the effectiveness of using exposure
locking with a digital camera. They argue
that because of the narrow exposure
lattitude of digital cameras you are
better off exposing each image in a
sequence at the optimal setting for the
camera, then fix any problems in a paint
program or a stitching tool.
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Why
limit QuickTime VR (or any
immersive technology) to land based
subjects? The JASON distance
learning project took QTVR photograhers to
Bermuda and now you can visit a page which
includes tips for taking underwater
panoramas.
The project is sponsored by EDS
<www.eds.com
journal article "Shooting
QTVR">
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3D Technologies
The
most significant advantage of technologies that
allow users to explore 3D models rather than
panoramic photographs is that the user can explore
all angles of the model; with the photographic
technologies the user is much more limited to
viewing a scene from specific locations.
This may or may not be a problem depending upon the
experience you are trying to provide the user.
While 3D technologies hold much promise, even with
todays computers, creating a fluid and realistic
scene requires lots of processing power (and if the
experience is on the web, the files can become
quite large; particularly as you add texture files
to improve the quality of the scenes.)
VRML has received a lot of press because it
is an "open" standard, but there are some
proprietary technologies; including
MetaStream and SuperScape.
VRML
(no one is sure how to pronounce it) received a lot
of press when it was first released as an open
standard for 3D worlds. A lot of tools have been
released that support it, and most 3D programs now
will at least export to a VRML file.
It's primary use has been on the web, and there are
plug-ins available for Macintosh and Windows. Even
so, adoption of the standard by the general public
hasn't been as fast as most expected (partly
because you need memory and speed for good
performance, and there is little compelling
content.)
At
the end of 1998 SGI, who was the initial
imputus behind VRML sold Cosmo Software to
Platinum. The unit continues to offer the Cosmo
Software, but it's unclear what Platinum plans to
do with the products (they already purchase another
VRML browser plug-in InterVista.)
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VRML
Repository <www.sdsc.edu/vrml_repository/repository.html>
Perhaps the ultimate collection of
information about VRML
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WorldView
VRML Browser plugin
<www.intervista.com>
They offer a browser for both Macs and
PCs.
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Cosmo
Software <www.cosmosoftware.com>
Has perhaps the best viewer plugin
Cosmo Player, as well as an editing
environment called Cosmo Worlds.
Company Status unclear (see
above)
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Spazz3D
is a VRML authoring tool that is
currently in beta. It provides tools for
building 3-D scenes, animating the
geometry and defining rules of
interactivity which can trigger lights,
sounds, and animations.
The
program can output animations in GIF and
AVI files as well as save the worlds in
the VRML 2 file format. An integrated FTP
utility uploads VRML world files, and all
their dependencies to a web site. You can
download it at the website.
<www.spazz3d.com>
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last
updated: 2/22/99
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