QuickTime VR

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I was asked to make some "tours" of some buildings for my company and instantly thought of QTVR. I have spent the time since trying to find viable free/opensource options and have recently moved to looking for commercial better capable cross-platform (XP on the desktop only company, but I want that option of Mac) products.



My question to you is what is out there that you have used? I need to do an exterior view of the building (which I can resort to plain pictures if necessary); I also need to do the inside of the buildings and do a tour, moving from room to room.



Any suggestions would be great.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    johnrpjohnrp Posts: 357member
    Do you need to



    1. take the photo's

    2. stitch the photos

    3. optimize the photo's for the presentation medium (cd-rom web flash etc)

    4. display the panoramas in some way



    If all of the above you have got some fun and games.



    I have the site www.vrhull.co.uk take a look.



    There are so many ways of doing this depending on how much of it you have to do.



    get back to me on what needs doing and I can advise.



    j.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    macserverxmacserverx Posts: 217member
    I will have to take the photos (renting equipment can be an option I was told) and stitch them together. My boss wants it too be fast, so any medium is alright. Out network seems to be fairly reliable and fast, so depending that was my first choice, with CD-ROMs available for transportability, etc. And then yes, I have to show them somehow.



    What is wanted is a way to quickly access information and photos about the buildings we own. Most are smaller, I'd guess under 15000 sq ft. There will be access to the specs of the building, and blueprints, as well as these virtual tours.



    I thought the best way to do this was building webpages, one for each building, and then linking to Interal Tours and External Views of the building.



    I think I may have to go commercial since, I will have to pass this on to someone else, who may not be to tech savvy, and from what I've looked at, making hotspots requires commercial software. (from what I've found so far) I haven't looked at your website yet.



    EDIT: I like the way that you have a map and then links inside that so the panoramas. It serves as a quick way to navigate between locations (rooms) and wouldn't require hotspots, though they would be great to have if possible.



    Also, I said about exterior views, I'd like to be able to view the whole building as one object perhaps, though that would require a great deal of space, perhaps linking to more focused shots from it, I'll deal though if that is not an option.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    neutrino23neutrino23 Posts: 1,561member
    Take a look at VRworx:



    http://www.vrtoolbox.com/vrthome.html



    This is one of the major players. You can use this to make VR-objects or scenes. To make the transitions between rooms you can add in hot spots.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    johnrpjohnrp Posts: 357member
    I use all HTML and Java for my tours, I used to use QTVR which gives better results quality wise but takes about 3x as long to make.



    PTViewer is what i use to display the panos. you can have them linking internally as well (I don't do this as it would take me ages keeping all the links up to date as I add new ones)



    I shoot the panoramas using a 1 shot Kaidan 360 it cuts down on stitching time.



    In fact the red-door site has everything you need and i am sure they will advise on software as well as hardware.



    j.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    macserverxmacserverx Posts: 217member
    johnrp, how much of a quality disparity is there in the Java views? Looking at your website, things look good. Zooming causes some pixelation. With high enough resolution images, is better zooming possible?



    Also, what software are you using the build the scenes?



    One thing I may run into is that we don't (we'd rent if anything) have the proper equipment for these scenes, so is the software "smart" enough to work with images that aren't exactly right? I can try to make a camera level and take pictures at intervals and then tilt the camera and repeat, but accuracy is not at all guaranteed for the angle measurements.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    johnrpjohnrp Posts: 357member
    to get the best results, the camera needs to be on a VR head on the tripod, This will keep the camera level and make sure the rotation is done in exact amounts (12-16 shots depending on camera etc) If all the shots are level with the same field of view the software can stitch them very easily and quickly giving very good results.



    However of the shots are not as accurate it will be more of a problem for the software to make them match. VRWorx is quite a good program for stitching.



    I use a one shot solution that needs no stitching just flattening out into the panorama. This is purely to save time as i needs less shots (photography time) and less post processing (stitching).



    The best way is to "suck it and see" but i would recommend looking into a specialized panoramic photography tripod head as it will give you massively better results and save you a load of time when matching all the photo's up at stitch time.



    As for the quality.. QTVR will give a smoother pan tilt and zoom, the quality of the image is no better just the movement of it.. however it is less than you might imagine. A larger resolution file will give better quality but the overhead for download is bigger which is why all vrhull are about 100k each (QTVR files of the same images at same quality are about 200k)



    j.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    macserverxmacserverx Posts: 217member
    I think I've been sold on the idea of using Java for the VR. Also, using a single-shot 360-degrees rig is sounding like the best option, since we would likely rent and being able to go to all of our buildings in one day and snap pictures would be a great cost saver.



    Now I have to ask, what program are YOU using to build these? You said you used PTViewer to display them, but there is no mention about what software you are using.



    BTW, the advice is quite appreciated.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    johnrpjohnrp Posts: 357member
    Ha



    No probs, I'm glad to help (I had enough when i was first starting out)



    The one shot lens comes with it's own software that takes the (doughnut shaped) image and turns it into flat panorama.



    from this



    to this



    It's called photowarp



    j.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    smhub1smhub1 Posts: 21member
    As a reference, have a look at Panic Software's 'office' page which includes a Quicktime VR of 'before' and 'after' the renovations. I suspect this is the sort of thing you're trying to achieve in a similar environment to that which you are interested in.



    I don't know how they did it, and I suspect that johnrx has already given you all the information you'd need to make your own but, if not, I imagine the lads at Panic would be more than happy to explain how they created their little office tour.



    http://www.panic.com/extras/office/
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