Dear Mike:
Thank you for writing in about the Surround Video technology used in
Expedia's Full Circles.  Here is some background information about the
images and the technology:

The images in Full Circle are created in a couple of different ways:
1) a special camera that spins around on top of a tripod, and generates a
long strip of film.
2) a regular 35 mm camera on a tripod rigged with a special device that
permits you to take one shot, then rotate the camera a few degrees, then
take another, and etc. This latter kind generates some 12 to 36 still
images. Those are then scanned in, and the seams between the stills are
digitally "sewn" together.

After processing either type to create a digital continous 360 image, we use
Microsoft's Surround Video technology to present that visual warping effect
in a Web page. The user can see by means of either an ActiveX control
(Internet Explorer browsers) or by downloading a plug-in (Netscape users).

There are a few versions of this technology: Surround Video code was created
by Black Diamond Consulting company in NH
http://www.bdiamond.com/surround/surround.htm Their site's got really great
information that explains how it works and how you can use it), and then
that was licensed and adapted by Microsoft. There is also something called
Apple Quicktime VR, which creates much the same effect, but is slightly
different. That technology works on Macs, too. (Do check out their site as
well--it's also good.)The Microsoft technology is not available for use
outside the company, but the Black Diamond and the Apple QTVR software are.

I hope this helps. Thanks again for your interest in Expedia.com's Full
Circle.

Best Wishes,
Jayme Lynes
Assistant Editor
MSN Expedia's Full Circle
http://www.expedia.com



povray.org admin team wrote in message
<362ed33e.12121109@news.povray.org>...
>It will probably only work in IE (when I tried Netscape, it failed to get
the
>plugin).
>
>  http://www.expedia.com/daily/fullcircle/australia/surround.hts
>
>I'd really like to see if we could implement some sort of viewer that would
>allow us to do a similar thing with a POV-Ray rendering ;)
>
>After all, the input image is probably just a large 360 degree strip made
with
>one of those special cameras. With the appropriate rendering it should be
>possible to do the same thing with a plugin (perhaps not that one since
it's
>likely to be Microsoft proprietary).
>
>

Post a reply to this message

Looks great!  And you don't need those annoying Microsoft plugins!!

Jim


Ron Parker wrote in message <362e07bd.0@news.povray.org>...
>On 21 Oct 1998 09:29:49 -0500, Ron Parker <par### [at] my-dejanewscom> wrote:
>
>>Something to think about: what happens if you render an image at say
14800x300,
>>using a camera with an angle of 370 degrees, then stick it in a 400x300
window
>>(with a scrollbar at the bottom)  If I'm thinking right, you'll get a
>>10-degree-wide view of a panoramic scene, and you can look around by
scrolling
>>left and right.  Ideally, of course, you'd want to do some perspective
>>correction on-the-fly, necessitating a plugin or some Java code, but if
you
>>keep your viewing angle small it shouldn't make much difference.
>
>Turns out 10 degrees is too narrow an angle.  I tried it with a little over
55
>degrees (a 2900x300 image) and it looks great.  If you'd like to see it,
point
>your HTML 4.0 compatible browser (IE 4 and above; sorry, NS 4.0x won't cut
it,
>nor, surprisingly, will Amaya) at http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/pantest.html
.
>(I guess I do have a working IE after all...)  The image is nothing to
write
>home about, but the technique is stunning.

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:25:33 -0400, Jim Kress <jim### [at] dccmailcom> wrote:
>Looks great!  And you don't need those annoying Microsoft plugins!!

Thanks!

Now it works in Netscape 4.x as well.  I opted not to use a frameset,
since I don't really like 'em all that much, and instead added some
JavaScript that executes when your browser doesn't support <IFRAME>. So,
if you're running Netscape, you get the panoramic effect in a new window.
It still doesn't work in Amaya, but you can't have everything...

Post a reply to this message

This is the kind of thing that got me to start the thread in povray.programming
about creating a spherical camera for POV, which eventually I got to work thanks
to Chris Colefax.  I posted the convoluted code there.

The viewer I used to view the image was livepicture, formerly realspace.  It's the
only one I know of that does a full 360 view of the image.  The info about it can
be found at:

http://www.livepicture.com/

Unfortunately, they have pretty much trashed the realspace viewer by mixing it
with activex and java, and I get nothing but errors on their pages now.  It would
be nice if someone were to create a public domain viewer that just did the
panormas and skipped the browser thrashing java ect.  I think that's what has been
keeping this kind of thing from becoming a standard.  About the best thing I can
find now is Quicktime, but last I checked they still didn't have the full 360
degrees version working.  Then there's the overhead of every company wanting you
to pay to create the images, which you should could do for free if the viewer
could just read in a standard jpeg, which is what they do anyway once they see the
proprietary extension on the file.  Argggh.

-Mike

povray.org admin team wrote:

> It will probably only work in IE (when I tried Netscape, it failed to get the
> plugin).
>
>   http://www.expedia.com/daily/fullcircle/australia/surround.hts
>
> I'd really like to see if we could implement some sort of viewer that would
> allow us to do a similar thing with a POV-Ray rendering ;)
>
> After all, the input image is probably just a large 360 degree strip made with
> one of those special cameras. With the appropriate rendering it should be
> possible to do the same thing with a plugin (perhaps not that one since it's
> likely to be Microsoft proprietary).

Post a reply to this message

In article <362ed33e.12121109@news.povray.org> , new### [at] DESPAMpovrayorg
(povray.org admin team) wrote:

>It will probably only work in IE (when I tried Netscape, it failed to get the
>plugin).
>
>  http://www.expedia.com/daily/fullcircle/australia/surround.hts
>
>I'd really like to see if we could implement some sort of viewer that would
>allow us to do a similar thing with a POV-Ray rendering ;)
>
>After all, the input image is probably just a large 360 degree strip made with
>one of those special cameras. With the appropriate rendering it should be
>possible to do the same thing with a plugin (perhaps not that one since it's
>likely to be Microsoft proprietary).

I case you do not know QuickTime VR, I have posted a sample QuickTime VR image
generated by POV-Ray. The POV-Ray scene has been in the official POV-Ray for Mac
distribution since POV-Ray 3.0! QuickTime is free and the (basic tools) to do this are
free as well. It does not only work on Macintosh, it works (very well!) on Windows
95,98 and NT 4. This is only a very small portion of the QuickTime technology. Note
that QuickTime is not only free, awailable on the major platforms, but all its formats
are *documented* (also some restricted by patents) and are *no* one way solution like
the MS Active X clones of this technology! And QuickTime is the base for the future
MPEG 4 (yes, thats no typo) standard. You can download QuickTime for free at
www.apple.com/quicktime/

The files are in povray.binaries.images. Note that for the high-res QuickTime VR movie
I used 756 * 2016 resolution (yes, QuickTime VR generates the panorama faster if a 90
degree rotated image is provided). The low res image is based on a 360*960 sized
image.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: Tho### [at] csicom

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://www.povray.org

Post a reply to this message

My brother sent me snowmoun.exe about a month ago. The 360x360 degree (all 
over the place) view is great but the perspective warping is always an 
undesirable effect of these panoramic scenes in my opinion, something without 
pixel distortion would be tremendous to see too.
My casio digital camera came with Spin Panorama to create these and I've made 
a few. Turns out it takes just 8 photos mended together, not 12 to 36 as was 
mentioned. The lens being so wide angle on my camera that the perspective 
warping is quite noticable (forget about trying anything even slightly up or 
down from level) but I guess a narrower angled lens would help prevent it. 
When I tried the same thing in Pov, I used an 8 frame sequence rotating the 
camera set at the center then converted to jpg and used them in Spin Panorama. 
Problem is there is a limited up/down, doesn't do this like the snowmoun.exe.
As Mike H. said, such a viewer would be good to have.
That "pantest", Ron Parker, is interesting because it has no perspective 
warping that I could tell. Zoomed in a great deal perhaps?

Message <362E5ED9.C69712DF@aol.com>, Mike  typed...
>
>This is the kind of thing that got me to start the thread in 
povray.programming
>about creating a spherical camera for POV, which eventually I got to work 
thanks
>to Chris Colefax.  I posted the convoluted code there.
>
>The viewer I used to view the image was livepicture, formerly realspace.  
It's the
>only one I know of that does a full 360 view of the image.  The info about it 
can
>be found at:
>
>http://www.livepicture.com/
>
>Unfortunately, they have pretty much trashed the realspace viewer by mixing 
it
>with activex and java, and I get nothing but errors on their pages now.  It 
would
>be nice if someone were to create a public domain viewer that just did the
>panormas and skipped the browser thrashing java ect.  I think that's what has 
been
>keeping this kind of thing from becoming a standard.  About the best thing I 
can
>find now is Quicktime, but last I checked they still didn't have the full 360
>degrees version working.  Then there's the overhead of every company wanting 
you
>to pay to create the images, which you should could do for free if the viewer
>could just read in a standard jpeg, which is what they do anyway once they 
see the
>proprietary extension on the file.  Argggh.
>
>-Mike
>
>povray.org admin team wrote:
>
>> It will probably only work in IE (when I tried Netscape, it failed to get 
the
>> plugin).
>>
>>   http://www.expedia.com/daily/fullcircle/australia/surround.hts
>>
>> I'd really like to see if we could implement some sort of viewer that would
>> allow us to do a similar thing with a POV-Ray rendering ;)
>>
>> After all, the input image is probably just a large 360 degree strip made 
with
>> one of those special cameras. With the appropriate rendering it should be
>> possible to do the same thing with a plugin (perhaps not that one since 
it's
>> likely to be Microsoft proprietary).
>
>
>

-- 
 omniVERSE: beyond the universe
  http://members.aol.com/inversez/POVring.html
=Bob

Post a reply to this message

On 21 Oct 1998 20:36:15 -0500, ver### [at] aolcom (=Bob) wrote:

>That "pantest", Ron Parker, is interesting because it has no perspective 
>warping that I could tell. Zoomed in a great deal perhaps?

Cylinder camera, type 1.  Standard 'direction' vector.  Like 2900
little images, all sewn together.

Post a reply to this message

oh, please don't do that. I've got a slow modem and a mac, anyway.

-mark r

Post a reply to this message

On 21 Oct 1998 20:36:15 -0500, ver### [at] aolcom (=Bob) wrote:

>My casio digital camera came with Spin Panorama to create these and I've made 
>a few. Turns out it takes just 8 photos mended together, not 12 to 36 as was 
>mentioned. The lens being so wide angle on my camera that the perspective 
>warping is quite noticable (forget about trying anything even slightly up or 
>down from level) but I guess a narrower angled lens would help prevent it. 

For those that don't know, an actual panoramic camera *must* be kept
*level* to provide the most realistic looking images. These cameras
are *very* expensive, with many professional photographers opting to
merely lease one, unless they happen to specialize in panoramic
photography. My point is that even the best equipment used by the top
professional photographers exhibits the property of not letting one
tilt the lens up or down - it's simply the nature of things. 

If one wants to show more area either above or below the horizon line,
this can be accomplished by using a camera with a shorter focal length
lens, which gives a greater vertical angle of view. This achieves the
effect that "tilting" the camera was intended to achieve, but without
the perspective distortion. There is more sky or tall buildings
showing in such an image, for example. The actual sizes of the objects
on the negative will be smaller, but after enlarging the negative for
printing, this isn't a problem. 

As for your needing only 8 photos to make a circle, that may be true,
but the resulting panorama will not often be nearly as smooth as one
made with more photos. People use up to 36 images (maybe more?) to
minimiz/se the perspective distortion in these non-continous
panoramas. Objects very near the camera, and appearing in two
consecutive frames might not "line up" very well if the panorama is
being pieced together from a small number of individual frames. The
more frames that are used, the smaller that type of error becomes. A
proper continuous panoramic camera wouldn't have these errors at all,
since they contain the equivalent of an "infinite" number of narrow
vertical "frames". 

My next comment has nothing to do with POV renderings  of panoramas.

If you want an interesting image, try making a large 360 degree
panoramic print - roll the print into a large cylinder with the image
toward the inside - tape the ends of the cylinder together, aligning
the image at the seam - then stick your head inside the cylinder to
view it.  This is true panorama viewing.  :)

Later,
Glen Berry

Home -> http://www.ezwv.com/~mclilith/index.html
IMP  -> http://www.algonet.se/~jhubert/MovieProject/index.html

To reply via personal email, remove the "X" from Xno### [at] ezwvcom

Post a reply to this message

It worked great on Netscape Communicator 4.5. Downloaded the Microsoft plug-in and
everything. At least Netscape is trying to make friends. :)


"povray.org admin team" wrote:

> It will probably only work in IE (when I tried Netscape, it failed to get the
> plugin).

Post a reply to this message