Hi Patrick,
Patrick Cheatham wrote:
> > Possibly, as far as best quality combined with cross-platform
> > accessibility, QT is still "it".
>
I tend to agree, with SPi-V/Shockwave coming in a close second.
> > It's the number one choice to export to, from within the stitching
> > applications.
>
A major design mistake of those stitching applications. PTgui does not
make that mistake. I store my VRs as equirects, so I can transform them
into cubes, stripes, synusoidals or whatever the taste of the day is.
Storing them in QTVR as misguided number one choice makes the author
captive of the QTVR format.
> > You can certainly author your pano and export it to other formats &
> > then offer multiple choices to your user/viewer -- though my thinking
> > is that this only confuses most people;
>
agree.
> > a marginally better approach is to pursue browser/app "sniffing" to
> > see what a user has installed, and then deliver the pano to them in a
> > specific format.
>
not marginally. Definitely superior.
> >
> > As far as delivering (cubic) Flash panoramas to users, a la Pano2QTVR
> > -> FlashPack: Many, if not most, "professional" displays of panoramas
> > within the context of a Web site or Virtual Tour are going to _not_
> > employ full screen display of the VR -- rather, the panorama is sized
> > to fit within a site's design.
>
With advancement in display technology, what was full screen yesterday
becomes a tiny little window tomorrow. With advancement in web
presentation techniques such as Lightbox there will be a shift in favor
of larger sized panoramas.
> > At this point, especially considering the need for
> > cross-platform/browser accessibility coupled with what I see as
> > perfectly reasonable and deployable image quality (from P2Q's Flash
> > display), Flash should be an important contender.
>
If you keep your window fullscreen and go to see the Flash at
<http://br.xenaura.com/test.php> you will see that it is fullscreen.
Even the Java there is full screen and worked on a Mac and on an Opera
browser.
> > There are other ways to display panoramas with "better" quality than
> > either QT or Flash (Shockwave, Pangaea, DevalVR, etc) but they all
> > suffer from a low or inconsistent install base, and many varying
> > degrees of functionality.
>
Each of the existing technologies, *including* QT suffer of some
drawback. This is why the detection approach is definitely superior. QT
can't do ADR like Shockwave does. From a CMS perspective (and we had our
phone conversation on this one, Patrick, remember?) the limited
scriptability of QT is a drawback (while I can easily add hotspot
shapes, positioning, URLs and all sort of overlays to Java/ptviewer and
Shockwave/SPi-V). And in term of installed basis, Java still beats them
all (except Flash, maybe), but is such a nightmare on other counts...
> > I've never been able to produce consistent results across browsers and
> > platforms when trying to use Javascript calls to interact with QT from
> > a browser. This is one example of many things which appear poorly
> > supported, or very low on the priority list (especially for QTVR), for
> > Apple & the QuickTime team. For the Javascripting issue specifically,
> > there are many browser issues which get in the way as well.
>
I am fighting hard to get any consistency across browsers and platform
with JavaScript. If you look at the early alpha code on
<http://br.xenaura.com/test.php> you will see that because of IE
quirckiness with PNG transparency, I need a fix. because of Safari
quirckiness with IFRAMEs, I need another fix. And I have not yet reached
the VR. I find it easier to handle consistency in VRs across plug ins,
than consistency in browsers and platforms with JavaScript or CSS.
Yuv
P.S.: enjoy the races tomorrow ;-)
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
QuickTime-VR mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/quicktime-vr/email@hidden
This email sent to email@hidden
