Jim Charter wrote:
> On a whim I spent just a little time poking around with Google to 
> investigate how difficult it would be to set up a virtual space with a 
> viewpoint that can be zoomed, dollyed, and panned. This could be in a 
> browser or in a separate viewer. At first blush it seems that panning 
> the camera or rotating an object is easy, also zoom, but dollying the 
> camera not so?  Is this true?  Does this function present a particlar 
> hurtle that panning and zooming doesn't?  Google maps does it.  Does the 
> difficulty increase linearly or exponentially?

If you wanna look from side to side or turn around, you can just 
manipulate a flat 2D image using 2D translations and rotations - just 
make sure the edges line up to make a continuous visual. Zooming is a 
similar story.

You want to *move* the camera position? Well then... *now* you must have 
a *real* 3D environment. (After all, you need paralex and stuff. You can 
fake that in 2D to some extent, but if arbitrary camera positions are 
possible, there's really no way to avoid a full 3D environment.) 
Obviously this is *significantly* more complicated to do.

Google Earth does it because it only draws a spherical planet. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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