IQTVRA WASHINGTON DC SUMMIT
by Michelle Bienias
Highlights and impressions of the recent IQTVRA Summit from speakers Michael Quan, Jook Leung, Scott Highton and Bill Meikle.
 Michael Quan, president of the IQTVRA and founder of the Interactive Tactical Group:
The IQTVRA "Summit in DC" has now concluded. In whirlwind four days participants from Asia, Europe and the Americas interacted with the leading experts on VR/interactive imaging.
There were many highlights including (1) a fabulous insider tour of the soon-to-be-opened National Air and Space Museum Hazy Center, (2) a “shoot around" of the Washington DC monuments, where some 20 photographers simultaneously produced VRs of the most prominent sites, (3) numerous sessions on subjects ranging from VR 101 to High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging to fisheye shooting techniques.
A most intangible but equally valued highlight of the conference was the opportunity to talk, wirelessly web surf, (and raise a glass:-) with our friends in the international VR community.
As you may know, the centennial of manned flight is nearly upon us. The Wright Brothers, who flew for the first time some one hundred years ago, could scarcely imagine the tremendous aeronautical achievements of the past century. During our tour of the National Air and Space Museum we saw everything from crude flyers to supersonic aircraft.
Many of us in the VR/interactive imaging community feel that our nascent industry has only really begun to fly. New technologies and markets will continue to emerge for images -- OUR IMAGES -- images that explain, demonstrate, and capture the wonder of our world.
Jook Leung of 360vr.com :
Ipix was a corporate sponsor and they made a big splash by giving away a Coolpix 5400 and FC-E9 fisheye/bracket in a business card drawing. The ipix team was wearing t-shirts that said "Play Nice", which had lots of ironic meanings. But they said it means their new software with it's open plug-in architecture will allow developers to write plug-ins that will "Play nice" with ipix's software or vice versa. They also hinted, but didn't announce that their licensing key business model will be changing.
The event highlight was visiting the new aviation museum building with Dennis giving a VIP tour.
Even the Smithsonian is having trouble funding the VR photography project as Dennis Biela describes that working with a "funding shortfall" means he and David Palermo get paid when the museum find creative ways to come up with the funds. IIt's his assignment of a lifetime that he lobbied many years to get. He's also a pilot.
His other staffers are two borrowed Smithsonian employees and a volunteer. Equipment comes from sponsors.
About 60 people attended and Dennis' business, LightSpeedMedia , paid for the hotel rooms and travel of all the speakers.
Something the organizers will change next year is to have two concurrent tracks/classes instead of 3 because an attendee was missing out on 2/3 of the classes.
The socials in the evenings, hanging out in the lobby because the Internet access was free was the winner for me to meet and talk. Everyone who had a talk to give was staying up real late to prepare the day before.
Aldo Hoeben / studioPKO probably had the most interesting VR technology cooking with his use of Shockwave, but I missed his talk.
Scott Highton of VRPhotography.com and Highton.com:
The Summit in Washington, DC was interesting, and was a great opportunity to get together with many of the leaders in the VR industry and to learn from one another.
Unfortunately, attendance was somewhat low and too many sessions were run concurrently, so many sessions wound up with only a small handful of audience members. It certainly made the gathering more intimate, however.
iPIX previewed their forthcoming release of a major overhaul to their VR authoring software, featuring an open plug-in architecture. The updated software will offer significant new capabilities along with the potential for third party additions, such as traditional rectilinear stitchers, etc. Of greatest interest however, is that iPIX is looking at significantly changing their business model and getting away from their current "key" or royalty payment structure. They were soliciting input for new business models from attendees. Expected release date for the new software (being developed concurrently for both Mac and Windows) is this coming January. As usual, the potential sounds promising, but the actual results will tell the tale.
Next year the conference will be held in Sedona, Arizona.
Bill Meikle of VRHotWires.com :
The conference was good and I had fun.
It's amazing to see guys who were just thriving a few years back having really suffered over the last couple of years. These were big photographers I've known over the years, and also a big group of ex-Apple employees were there. Nice to get drunk with a bunch of guys paying dues... I mean, I used to play jazz for a living, an area where suffering is almost necessary to success...If you haven't paid dues you can't play the blues...
At the high end, Spheron has an awesome pano rig for $55,000 that takes a pano in 48-bit depth.
This is a relevant and cool app that's cheap . If you make panos that have the problem where one shot is way too light or dark this is a solution. You take two shots, one that exposes for say, that window that's all blown out, and another that gets the interior. The software automatically blends the two into a nice image: Great and cheap.
I met a lot of cool new people and saw a bunch of people I've known for years. (I've been doing QTVR for 8 years!) There was a general feeling that Apple has sold us out. As one guy put it "I used to tell my students to use QuickTime, it's a little slower, frame rate wise, but it has creative interactive possibilities that let you redefine what a movie is... Now that apple has fired it's interactive team and become a 3rd rate player in the video wars, I stand up there and try to say 'use QuickTime, it's um, worse!' "
But the stores went over well. Women love the stores. It's the difference between hunting and gathering... As someone said 'if you make anything on a computer that women like, you're onto something...'
Another guy said, 'If you get these up and running you've got a two month window until at least four companies put out copies. Programmers are lousy at creating new ideas, but good at copying them.’ This is what I've always believed. Build-out the stores and prepare to get ripped off in various ways by big aggressive players who think they're heroes.
I met with worldpay, they were based 10 minutes away from the hotel and they take 120 currencies...I thought the universe wanted me to do it, since they happened to be right there. Nice people. Expensive though.
They may have the conference again next year but if Apple doesn't throw a bone in the interactive direction, I think they'll have brilliantly killed off the main strength of QT. I bet it won't happen? Who knows, maybe they'll get it, but I think they're actually closer to losing it completely. Even with the g5, and Steve Job's arrogance, it's pretty hard to take a company with less that 2% market share seriously.
Did you see my slideshow? Had a great tourist day looking around D.C. (Washington Monument, Big Lincoln, WhiteHouse, Wietnam Wall, etc.). I made it in iPhoto which has a great export to QT function. It was WAY nicer than I thought. More of a land of gentry, than the slums I'd seen on T.V. I mean there are some SERIOUSly rich people in that zone. Miles of mansions that look like castles; scared, paranoid, wealthy folks who spend a ton more on police than on social housing and wonder why it doesn't work. Ah America, land of the greatest and the worst.
Dennis has a great job at the Smithsonian photographing planes like the Wright brothers and the one that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
How was the conference? Well it was in the center of the world in some ways, a world controlled by a man who had never been overseas when he was elected. I wonder if all the suffering I saw amongst qtvr users and engineers was Apple's fault, or George's, or maybe Osama's?
Whatever the case, I had fun anyways.
Links:
Jook Leung’s DC Summit
National Air and Space Museum field trip and conference photos by Mike Quan
Bill Meilke has posted his observations on the summit to his vrhotwires list.
Time lapse panorama of the Hyatt Dulles Lobby
National Air and Space Museum
Summit in DC
|  | |
| The purpose of this banner is to raise funds for a new VR community project VRMag will launch in a few months.
| |
