click here to open Project access page
Amidst the Luxor’s Grand Pyramid, New York New York’s skyline and the Parisian’s Eiffel Tower, the Venetian Hotel Resort and Casino tries to capture the charm of a Venetian canal. Opened in May 1999 with a deluxe spa, upscale shopping and erupting volcanoes, the resort cost a staggering $1.5 billion.Robert C. Fisher has produced a wonderful virtual tour of the Venetian Hotel, which he shot as a demo for his work. The Venetian Hotel Tour starts with a map of the hotel and includes five large panos showing the canals, shops, hotel entrance and great hall. “The time of day I like there is the evening because in the harsh glare of daylight Las Vegas looks ugly but at night it shines. You only see what the architects want you to see after dark,” he explains.
Surprisingly, Fisher managed to shoot these panos without attracting the attention of security: “When I shot these panos I really expected to be kicked out of the Venetian, it was just months after 9/11 here in the States, the country was on high alert”, writes Fisher. “I decided to walk from my hotel just behind the strip over to the Venetian but I had forgotten how large Las Vegas blocks are. It turned out to be a mile and half (2.4 km) walk. By the time I got there it was just getting dark so I had to shoot quickly to get the shots outside, I had shot 5 nodes outside but 2 turned out really well so those I used the other 3 went into the can. You would think after shooting all those outside the security guys might have noticed me but no one bothered me the whole evening. I then went inside and shot the other 3 nodes over about 2 hours trying to either get people into my shots, as in the bridge shot, or trying to keep them out.”
Shoot Details:
Panorama rig is a Nikon Coolpix 5000 with wide-angle adapter. A Bogen
302 Rotator with a custom made multi-row bracket of my own design. The pano was stitched with Realviz Stitcher 3.5.2, then Cubic Converter 2.0 was used to make into cubic VR.
About Robert C. Fisher:
Robert C. Fisher just completed an interview for British graphics magazine ‘Stills Audio Motion’; look for it in the near future.
“As well as finding interesting panos to shoot I am also working on building an automated object rig and shooting object VRs of furniture for several manufacturers as a joint venture with another photographer. In October I also shot a Video news release for the IQTVRA about the QTVR project at the National Air and Space Museum at the new Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport. Dennis Biela and David Palermo have been working there since April 2003, shooting every airplane and spacecraft plus hundreds of objects so everyone can access their entire collection online and in the museum at 150 kiosks,” writes Fisher.
