Topic: Creating a Virtual Tour

what is the best way to create a virtual tour of a building ? Also how can I make objects inside the tour interact with the user's reponse ?

iris.

I'm currently doing virtual tours using iPIX technology. Quicktime VR as well, they're both similar in that you can 'interact/pan' around "inside" the image, click on hotspots to advance to another area etc.

Unfortunately neither one is cheap to get started doing. iPIX has some nasty patents/copyright they enforce so the open source technology doing this is getting squashed.

I'm not getting in here as much as I normally do but I'll check back on this thread when I can, you can also email me (check my profile) if you need anymore help directly.

Jason

[This message has been edited by JKMabry (edited 04-09-2003).]

Is this a web based production?

Well this is CD based production for a Multimedia project. What I after was more like how do i create the virtual tour using Quicktime VR or anything esle . Any resources/ tutorials for that would be a great help.

thanks ppl.
iris.

IF it's for a CD based production and your using Director 8+ then you can quite easily use quicktime VR with it. There's a bunch of info on controling Quicktime movies in the director help files, the apple website should also give you all the info you need on how to setup a quicktime VR. I've always found the help files to be the fastest way to learn a program, if you get stuck with any particular part of the process then forums like this are usualy the best place to get unstuck.



Although I've never done a QT VR myself so I can't really give you any pointers but I do believe you'll need a camera with a tripod so you can take pictures at set rotations which you then stich togther and put into quicktime. Anyways, maybe Jason could offer some more advive in this area. I think you might actually need QuickTime Pro to make the VR stuff but don't quote me on it.

The other option would be to simply film parts of the building and cut togther the footage as a virtual tour, since it's for a CD you don't have to worry about bandwidth limitations so full motion video might be the way to go. Again, with QuickTime and Director you could make it interactive but this would greatly depend on your resources in trems of software and hardware.

What kind of Software/Hardware are you working with? Do you have a Still Camera? Got a Mini DV Camera? What kind of software do you have access to?

I spent a lot of time myself trying to figure this QTVR stuff out. here's what I've learned.

You need a "sticher" application that will allow you to place photographs you took in a sphere. The only program I've used tus far is made by Realviz. There are a number of helpful applications for macintosh at the apple site. It confused me. Good luck!

[edit] however I have seen an iPix video on the Harry potter dvd-rom that was amazing. it was a full panorama that also played as the cameraman carted around the camera through all the different rooms of the school. That was a site to see. [/edit]

Shine and shine. :: [Cell=992] :: [See my team's 30 second animation!! ]

[This message has been edited by Bmud (edited 05-01-2003).]

[This message has been edited by Bmud (edited 05-01-2003).]

welp, if it be QTVR tutorials you're after check Google, some good ones came up on the first page.

I can't really help with QTVR as I do it through iPIX software and you're not going to get that or find tutorials on it without spending some serious cash. The iPIX Builder is used to sticth together a couple of 180 degree fisheyes then it can output this 'sphere' to be played with a plugin, java, as an exe or QTVR. For the interactivity you're talking about you'd use iPIX TV Studio to link the 'rooms', add narration, music, html, whatever. The only tutorials I've seen for the iPIX stuff is their help files, and at times, they're about as helpful as, well, a help file can be I guess. I did manage to ferret this out of Google, it the manual for the 360 Suite of softwares, the ones mentioned above are included.

I think the only diffence between a QTVR and an iPIX immersive image is that with iPIX you're inside a sphere and can see everything, the QTVR is essentially just a panorama, you cannot see the floor/ground or ceiling/sky.

Jason

There is an FAQ on this kind of thing here:

:FAQ: How do I make an interactive panoramic view or virtual tour?

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

holy moly iris, have a look here: http://www.panoguide.com

I was filling the FAQ Emps put up and ran across that site while Googling some odd VR terms. Great stuff from the underbelly of the VR world

Jason

thats a lot of useful info. ...thanks a lot ppl.


Iris