Wood just released the next version (1.1.0), which is functionally identical to beta 1.0.6.

New Features:
-Text feedback for pan/tilt/fov (text input to come in a future version).
-Preview button allowing you to double-check the camera path.
-Pan 360˚ button- creates a 360˚ pan from the start position back to the start position, for looping video.
-Improved error-checking, if you left out a step it will tell you which step (no frame-rate etc.).
-Demo watermark is now a proper watermark with full transparency, placed over the video.
-128 pixel icon for OS X.

He plans to add feature to future releases, including:
- Text input and output for pan/tilt/fov
- Saving and loading of camera paths.
- Multiple point paths.
- Ease-in and ease-out.
- Recordable paths (see more here) http://www.ianjameswood.co.uk/lsp/record_with_spline_v1.mov

Click here for a free demo download or full version download for $15.

Eric O'Brien recently posed some questions about the QTVR2MOV app on the QTVR list. His questions, and Ian Wood’s responses, are below.

What’s ‘under the hood’?

It was made using Runtime Revolution, the successor to SuperCard, HyperCard and MetaCard, allowing very rapid application development, for more details look at http://www.runrev.com.

This is an application that outputs single frames. It started off as an AppleScript controlling a LiveStage Pro sprite added to the pano in QT Pro, and before that an enormously long script put into PTMac. Rev gives the possibility of direct visual control rather than typing in numbers. I'm sure all this could be done better in Carbon or Cocoa, but my programming skills go as far as AppleScript, QScript & TranScript. I've looked at Cocoa, but the amount to learn is a bit much for a small spare-time project.

The program costs $15, I worked out this price by comparing the features it has to similar programs for still images and priced accordingly.

Several problems and limitations with the current approach come to mind. For one thing, it fills your hard drive with potentially hundreds of single frame files, which are only used as intermediaries. Second, because it's exporting single frames from an existing movie, those frames will almost certainly have already been compressed. When they are compressed again (at the time the linear movie is saved) there will be a generational quality drop.

Technically there will be a generational quality drop, but as long as you are using a hi-res pano that hasn't been drastically compressed it is not noticeable, unless you zoom in far beyond reason. In addition, video requires far lower quality per individual image than still photography, 25/29.97 fps disguises a lot. Try looking at the image quality of a single frame from a prosumer-level DV cam.

What about motion blur and render fields options?

The big problem with both of these points is direction. The software would have to analyse the direction and velocity of the camera path in order to know how to blur the image/make the fields. For high FoV it gets even worse as different parts of the image would need to be blurred by different amounts and different directions, an effect easily seen in a pano where the edges of the image change much more rapidly than the middle. I have been playing around with AppleScript-controlled PhotoShop actions that combine successive frames, but it's not ideal.

Consider the several software tools which already exist that allow the user to output a linear movie from pans, zooms and rotation of a ‘viewport' that moves over a still image ("You too can be a Ken Burns.") I know of at least three, there probably are more:

- Photo To Movie (Macintosh)

- StillLife (Macintosh)

- MovingPicture (Macintosh and Windows; free-standing as well as plug-ins)

All these programs are pretty far along in development and have many features. It would seem only a small step to add the ability to accept an equirectangular file as input, divert the viewpoint image data through a rectilinear conversion process, then feed the corrected image back into the already well-developed work flow.

At $199 (+ $69 if you want rotation) Moving Pictures is on a very different level, this could be why it is the only one that offers fields and motion blur.

This would be a very useful addition to the existing programs; the problem is the amount of work they would have to do for a fairly limited return. The number of panographers who want video from panos is FAR lower than the number of photo & video users who want video from still images. But the more choice the better!

These programs can already be used successful for low FoV video from panos. As they are at the moment, without the equirectangular-to-rectilinear conversion they are useless for wide-angle pans, or for subjects such as architecture where any distortion will show up immediately. Their big advantage is the ability to output a linear movie file directly, rather than relying on QT Pro.

Instructions for use:

1. Open QTVR2MOV and click “Open Pano”. You will be shown an open dialog box to choose a movie, then asked to choose a folder to store the sequence of stills. If there are any JPEGs left from previous runs you will be asked if they should be deleted.

CAUTION: CUBIC format only, cylindrical movies do not understand the ‘tilt’ parameter! Panos with auto-rotate sprites are also a bad idea.

2. Choose the dimensions of the video sequence from the popup button. Current choices are: 320x240; 400x300; 600x400; 720x480 DV-NTSC; 720x534 NTSC Square; 720x576 DV- PAL and 768x576 PAl Square.

The ‘Square’ settings are only for projects for DVD that will be seen on TV screens. The DV format uses non-square pixels, so images that look correct on computer screens will look squashed on a TV screen. This effect is not usually noticeable, but you can get around it by making a movie at the ‘square’ setting and then exporting the resulting movie from QuickTime Pro at the non-square size.

3. Pick the direction of rotation, left or right.

4. Pick a frame rate. If you have chosen a DV size for the dimensions this will already be set to 25fps or 29.97fps as appropriate. Available frame rates are 10; 15; 24 for film; 25 for DV- PAL; 29.97 for DV-NTSC and 30.

5. Pan around the movie until you find the point you want to start the sequence and click “Set Start Position”. Pan around to the point you want to end at and click “Set End Position”. You can click on “Go To Start Position” and “Go To End Position” to double-check your positions. The newest version will show you the pan/tilt/fov figures for the current view, start position & end position.

6. Enter the duration in seconds.

7. Click “Make Movie”. The pano will slowly rotate from start point to end point, saving each frame as a JPEG in the folder that you chose, with a name like “100000001.jpg”.

7a. Instead, you can click “Pan 360˚”. The pano will slowly rotate from the start point, through 360˚ back to the start point, giving a movie that can be looped.

CAUTION: QTVR2MOV must be the front most application; it is effectively capturing screenshots of itself so any windows that go over the top of it will be captured instead of the pano.

8. On Mac OS 9 or X a couple of beeps will sound and the image sequence will be opened up in QT Pro at the frame rate that was chosen. You can now export it in the compression codec of your choice. On Windows you will have to do this step manually.

Getting the best results:

Use a fairly high-resolution pano, especially if you plan to zoom in far.

Make sure that the window size of the QTVR is within 50% of the final video, QT isn’t very good at showing QTVRs at smaller sizes, e.g. a 900x600 pano will not show cleanly when displayed at 400x300.

If the movie is to be seen on a TV screen there should be NO pure whites in the image. Reduce the lightest highlight to 80% or less before making the cubic movie.

If there is a lot of fine detail, especially high contrast detail, apply a horizontal motion blur to the original flat pano in Photoshop before converting it to a pano movie, this should help reduce the ‘creep’ effect that is unavoidable when making a series of totally stationary stills into a video sequence.

I also recommend exporting the final movie from QT with a ‘blur’ filter setting of 1-2, which should also help with the creeping effect if it is still noticeable. It will be a trade-off between jitter and sharp detail in the final video sequence.

Known Bugs:

Windows XP Screen Flicker - QTVR2MOV forces a screen redraw on XP each time it saves a frame, this has no effect on the images but all icons on the desktop will flicker each time. Irritating but functional.

JPEG as text on Mac OS - For some reason the JPEG files are coming up as text files on OS 9 & X, they are still JPEGs and will open fine in QT Pro, but double-clicking on the files will open them in a text editor.

Error Checking - There is currently no error checking for available HD space on either platform or for the existence of QT Pro on Mac OS.

For more information please contact Ian Wood: qtvr2mov@azurevision.co.uk.