As Paul and his wife Nadia are both experienced VR photographers, they also viewed the trip as an opportunity to combine travel with their passion for VR photography, and share that experience with their children and the rest of the world. They recently launched World in MotionVR website to help travelers experience online the travel highlights of each country the family visits. “We hope this will enable travelers to better understand what there really is to see and do in each country and thus simplify their travel planning.”

click here to view site

Based on the collection currently available online (the family is only halfway through their tour), I would highly recommend other travelers, especially families, check out the site, not only for the eye candy and vicarious thrills, but for offbeat ideas on what to do while traveling in those countries. How about crocodile spotting in Mary River National Park, Australia, home to one of the world’s densest croc populations? Or Zorbing, which involves careening down a hill inside a large plastic ball? The travelogue includes hang gliding, bungee jumping, rock carving and a time-lapse video of a busy Sydney street. I can’t imagine the fun the two Iliffe kids (nine year old Liam and seven year old Shan) are having, never mind the great education! Both children have their own digital cameras and keep regularly updated blogs about their travel adventures for family and friends.

The Bull! The Bull!
Daughter Shan writes of the time they had a close encounter with a bull when they stopped at village festival driving back from Lake Titicaca: “Today we were in a bullfight. It was very dangerous. I was scared because my pants were pink and I love pink. The bulls hate pink, orange and red. The bull hurt a lady badly because she was wearing pink like me. But some people hid me under a truck. The bull couldn’t find me there. Ha Haaaaaa.”

Thinking back to the bull episode in Bolivia, Iliffe notes that it’s often the most unexpected situations that provide the most memorable anecdotes. Iliffe: “A crowd of several thousand people had congregated together in and around a makeshift arena. It was extremely colorful and atmospheric with musicians, clowns and festivities happening everywhere. I managed to squeeze through the crowd and was in the process of shooting a quick handheld cubic when I turned to face a rather angry looking bull that had been released along with several others. Everybody started running in panic and unfortunately a number of people were seriously injured. We found out later that letting the bulls run rampant through the crowd is a highly anticipated part of the festivities.”

The family found Bolivia a pleasant surprise that totally exceeded their expectations, despite the high altitude and transportation challenges. “The surreal landscape surrounding the world’s largest salt desert in Southern Bolivia was absolutely unforgettable, as was taking a ride down the world’s most dangerous road or through the dense Amazon jungle.” And despite the hordes of tourists, Cusco and Machu Picchu in Peru lived up to expectations. Australia and New Zealand were both incredible, although the family became tired of all the long distance driving.

Before leaving on their adventure the family put together a list of key travel highlights and landmarks they wanted to visit and, to maximize variety, each country was assigned a theme. For instance, Australia had a nature slant while New Zealand focused more on landscapes and extreme activities. In Bolivia it’s more people and their lives and in Peru it’s more about the cultural and pre-Columbian heritage.

Asked about shooting conditions in some of the extreme locations the family has visited Iliffe mentions the physical danger in capturing the forest flying panos (Australia) and the bungee jump (New Zealand), but says that the most technically difficult pano was the Glowworm VR shot in the Waitomo caves in New Zealand. “We spent over four hours getting this shot in virtually pitch black conditions with icy water from the stalactites dripping everywhere,” he says. “The glowworms disappear if you shine a light close to them so we had to rely heavily on the rather excellent low light capabilities of our Canon 20D.”

Of course, one of the main reasons to travel is to meet and interact with people whose culture is unlike our own and traveling with high-tech photography equipment is certain to raise eyebrows and guarantee lots of enquiries. “When we pull out the MotionVR rig, it invariably attracts a ton of attention as no one here has seen anything like it before. People are generally very charming and fascinated by what we’re doing,” Iliffe says, while noting that they made efforts to detract attention from the thousands of dollars worth of photo equipment on their backs. “However it can sometimes get rather scary, especially when you find yourself suddenly surrounded by an unruly crowd of people, all jostling each other to get a better look. Markets like colorful Tarabuco in Bolivia or frenetic street scenes in La Paz or Cusco were the worst places for this although often these locations resulted in some of our most intriguing footage. Most people we've shown our work to during the trip have only ever seen the small, blurry VR often used in real estate. They were completely ‘wowed’ by the photographic quality and highly immersive experiences we are able to achieve. We've also been very surprised by the sheer number of emails and positive feedback about the project we've received from around the world. This has been very encouraging and really helps keep us motivated.”

World in MotionVR Website:
The neatly organized site is arranged by country and then further categorized into Cubic VR, Motion VR, and Still Photos. Each VR is conveniently represented on a country map and accompanied by a short description and links to further information. So far, Australia and New Zealand are the only countries completed, but with over 100 VRs, many with sound, the site is chock full of interesting and unusual panos and something Ilicak calls motion VRs, a method he developed from a desire to capture moving scenes in 360 degrees.

MotionVR
MotionVR, conceived and developed by Iliffe, is a QuickTime movie made from a linear sequence of 360-degree images. “One of my frustrations with QTVR is that despite its obvious interactivity, it’s still essentially a static medium,” he explains. “Adding a time-based component really boosts the immersive experience of feeling part of a dynamic scene, as long as image quality doesn’t suffer too much.”

Each image is shot with a 360-degree mirror lens and a 8MB digital SLR to maximize resolution. Iliffe uses his custom-built tripod with a variety of attachments to securely mount the camera onto cars, trains, boats, and helicopters, even hang gliders. “A remote controller fires the camera at set intervals, up to five fps, and stores the resulting imagery on the biggest, fastest memory cards available. Each time-lapse motion sequence can contain several thousand hi-def 360 degree images which require significant post-production.” For this the husband and wife team developed an automated workflow (using Discreet Combustion) that unwraps each image, color corrects, stabilizes or retracks the motion if necessary, and outputs several QT movie versions at different frame rates, up to 30 fps and the “excellent linkVRHotwires produces the panning effect, or spriteorama.” All work is done on an Apple 12” Powerbook, which they often leave processing overnight. Iliffe finds the result similar to panoramic video but with higher quality imagery that can ultimately be displayed fullscreen. Early on the couple experimented with one of the new HD video cameras but were dissatisfied with the extra processing requirements, lower resolution and resulting image quality.

Equipment
“The challenge has been to strike the right balance between absolutely essential equipment and our own personal belongings,” Iliffe responds when asked about photography equipment. “We need to travel as lightly as possible especially on excursions like treks. Our Lowepro backpacks have been a godsend (I use the CompuTrekker). We essentially carry two Canon 20D’s, several Canon L glass lenses and our trusty Sigma 8mm fisheye, a 360 precision head, a leveling base, Gitzo carbon fiber tripod and an Acratech ballhead. For Motion VR in particular, we also have our custom built tripod, remote and two 360 degree lenses. A 12” Powerbook and the very cool Archos 100GB DVR we use for additional storage, watching DVD’s and directional sound recording (with preamp and binaural mikes) completes the setup. We had to replace one of the 20D’s after stupidly dropping it over the side of King’s Canyon in Australia. Apart from that ‘mishap’, we’ve managed to keep everything else pretty much intact up to now (fingers crossed).”

Future Plans
The Iliffe’s World in MotionVR tour coincided with a desire to return home to the UK after spending six years in the US. Upon returning to the UK early next year, they plan to commercialize a collection of interactive DVDs for each of the countries they’ve visited. “Each DVD will contain our best fullscreen Cubic and MotionVR footage, interactive travel maps, directional sound and virtual tours of specific country highlights,” Iliffe says. “We are developing the DVDs with wired Quicktime as we go using LiveStage Pro and VRHotwires software.” Later, they will expand MotionVR to Europe with DVDs for France, Italy and the UK.

But that’s not all they have planned: in January they will overhaul the website with new country highlights and a premium VR content section for paying subscribers; they’re considering a deal to publish a hardcover book of their best panos in April 2006; and they’re pursuing several licensing opportunities with companies who have expressed interest in their tour footage. Iliffe divulges that Sony is producing a music video in 360 degrees for one of their artists that will exclusively use World in MotionVR footage. “It looks incredible and will start airing in December,” he says.

Paul Iliffe spent over 12 years in Paris and Chicago working for a top global ad agency. He founded Spin2see with his wife Nadia to offer VR and time-lapse photography to corporate clients.
Email: paul[at]worldinmotionvr[dot]com