NEW PANO2QTVR SOFTWARE FOR WINDOWS USERS
by Pat St. Clair
Windows users have long awaited software like Pano2QTVR. Thanks to Thomas Rauscher, the wait is over. Rauscher recently released Pano2QTVR as the first Windows-based software able to perform advanced functions - similar to the popular CubicConverter for Macs. (PanoCube is another utility for creating QuickTime cubic movies from equirectangular panoramas in Windows.) Pano2QTVR is a freeware tool that converts cylindrical and spherical panoramas into QTVR movies on the Windows platform. Hotspots, FOV, pan, tilt, and zoom parameters can be defined with ease as well as copyright tracks. Pano2QTVR is available as command line program or as a GUI; its layout is intuitive and makes it a breeze to use. And best of all, it’s free for non-commercial use of the output files.Pano2QTVR Features:
- Create cylindrical or cubic panoramas with up to 255 hotspots.
- Create a grayscale or colored preview track with a chosen reduction factor
- Generate subtitles for progressive download
- All major QuickTimeVR parameters can be set, such as fov, pan, tilt, protection, compressed headers, and userdata.
- Spot the detail for the initial viewing parameters, and grab this position
- Spot the detail in the next linked movie for virtual tours
- High quality is enabled
- Extract the cubefaces for retouching and assemble them to the final output
- Direct usage of the pano12.dll, no annoying pop-up windows between the steps
- Call an external JPEG compressor like GraphicsMagick , ImageMagick or IrfanView
- Manipulate nearly all parameters with the GUI
- Multiple, structured config files Additional features of Pano2QTVR Pro:
- Import up to 10 sprite-tracks, soundfiles, images, Flash movies, etc.
- Use the output files for commercial purposes. Rauscher wanted a QuickTime panorama with a grayscale preview track, but couldn’t find Windows-based software to easily do this. He read the QuickTime API and realized the possibilities this format offered but was frustrated he couldn’t use all the features on Windows. “I thought about buying a Mac Mini just to make panoramas,” he says, “but then I tried to make my own software, primarily for my needs only.” He thought others might be interested in his first version and announced it on the PanoTools list. “The response was amazing!” Rauscher says. “I got electrified and with everyone’s input, more and more ideas came to mind and the software has grown to the current stage. I am still not running out of ideas and I think there are a lot of interesting things to come.” Luca Vascon invited Raucsher to the August 2005 PanoTools meeting in Venice, where he demonstrated his software for the first time. (Vascon also designed the Pano2QTVR website.) Peter Nyfeler tried the software and immediately saw the power of it, and wrote up an excellent tutorial (available on the website and copied at the end of this article). “I was amazed at the speed Thomas developed the software,” Nyfeler says. “The first version was quite usable and was growing very, very fast. All the new features that were suggested by Panotools members were developed in almost no time and new versions of Pano2QTVR were available quickly.” Nyfeler promises more tutorials in the future. Rauscher has also developed an OpenGL Panorama Viewer called GL Pano Viewer. This hardware renderer uses the local graphic card to display the panorama, making the presentation very smooth and free of jerks while panning. The viewer displays QTVR movies without hotspots at this time and is available free as stand-alone or plug-in for IE, Mozilla and Firefox browsers. The plug-in is only 500 KB to download, compared to 10 MB for QuickTime Player. Getting Started with Pano2QTVR, by Peter Nyfeler | | | | Open pano2qtvr by a double click on this icon |
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| | | | | Start tab
Here you can see the three options on how to start. Ok, the window looks a bit empty. The other tabs are hidden until you open a new or existing project. |
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| | |  | |  Create a new project
This will open a dialog to choose name.
Open a recent project
In this area you will find a list of projects you have recently created. If there isn't enough space in the white area to find your desired project, choose the third option to open an existing project from elswhere on your computer |
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| | |  | | If there is an existing project it looks like this.
A double click on the name opens the project and jumps to the project settings tab. |
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| | | | | A dialog window opens to type in a project name. Create a new folder with a descriptive name to get a better overview as the number of projects will grow. Click save (speichern) to create the new file.(e.g. mountains.pqp) | | | | |
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| | | | | The software jumps to the Project settings tab and all the tabs are visible now. All the visible settings are loaded from the default settings. These settings can be saved in the menu File > Save as Default In this tab you see a lot of things that can be added and changed. Let's take a closer look in the following step: |
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| | | | | Here are the settings and values: 1. The base path is the place where all additional files are saved.
2. Tell pano2qtvr which panorama (equirectangular or cylindrical projections are possible) you want to generate a qtvr movie.
3. Add a name for the movie that will be created later on. It is
recommended to place all the generated files to the base path, so that you
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| can find them in a later session or by creating a virtual tour with hotspots.
4. Add a value for the tile size (cube face size). For full screen panoramas it should be a value in between 1000 to 1800 pixels.
5. Here you can add a number that creates subtiles of each cube face. With 1x1 no subtiles will be created. The maximum value is 5x5 which will create 25 subtiles. The subtiles will be loaded progressively so the first subtiles will be seen earlier than when the whole tile has to be loaded.
6. This value can make your movie smaller but with lower quality. Here you have to make a decision abaout file size and image quality. A good value for a full screen panorama is from 50 to 80 %.
7. If you want to retouch some of the created tiles or you have chosen subtiles, check this box to create tiles in tiff format, so the retouching and resaving will be lossless and produces better quality.
8. As you can see in the screenshot the buttons are inactive as long there are missing values. When all the needed values are added the buttons become active. | | |
| | | | | In this screen all needed values are added. The three yellow highlighted buttons are now available to click. Choose one of the three options. |
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| | |  | | You need only create these tiles (the six cube faces) to generate further enhancements and features to the movie. Click Create Tiles and a window pops up to show you the progress of the tile creation. The tiles will be saved in the base path. |
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| | | | | Adding further options in Quicktime settings tab 1. When you open the movie in Quicktime player, this is the defined size of player. These values aren't important for full screen panoramas. The panorama size of a full screen pano is stored in the HTML tags of the viewing page.
2. When you show large movies, a preview track can be a really good idea to give visitors a first impression in low quality to encourage them to wait until the
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| whole movie is downloaded. The bigger the number the lower the quality of the preview. If you check grayscale the preview track will be reduced to only gray tones. The contrast with the finally loaded panorama is even bigger and impressive.
3. Add values for the movie quality when moving and standing still. You will have to test the different values to get a feeling of them and what fits best for your needs.
4. Add the default values for the movie. With the min / max values you can limit the visitors view to a determined region or you can limit the tilt down value to hide your tripod, for example.
5. Here you can add all the information that should be saved in the movie. | | |
| | | | | Here you can see an example of values I've added. Now.... the big moment. We will cerate our first movie clicking on Create movie from Tiles. The same progress window (Console) pops up as by the creation of the tiles. You can find the movie (.mov) in the base path location. |
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| | |  | | To give the movie an exactly determined starting point you need to open it and pan to the desired point. This task is really easy to add with the spotter tool. Click Spot in QT to open the movie in a separate window |
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| | |  | | Don't forget: the movie has to be created first, as said before, to be able to show up. |
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| | | | | The QT spotter window 1. Here you can see the same values as in the Viewing parameters from the window before. Pan to the desired place and the values will be updated at every stop. When you are happy with the current region press grab.
2. Values are now added to the Project parameters.
3. If you are not familiar with the keybord keys pan, tilt and zoom you can use these signes. To save the values click OK. |
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| | | | | Here again with a closer look, pan around until the position fits your needs, press grab and OK to save the values and leave the spotter window. |
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| | |  | | We are almost done and really curious about the result. Click Create + Open Movie to add the collected values to the movie and open it in a |
| | Quicktime window after that. | | |
| | | | | Here you see the creation progress (Console tab) of pano2qtvr again which adds the collected values to the movie. |
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| | | | | Here we are..... Test the movie. If you are not satisfied with the result, go back to pano2qtvr and change the values until you are happy with the result. Note:
The preload movie and the tiling feature isn't visible this way. You have to embed the movie in a HTML page and open it in a browser window to view these features. See final movie here (~1.6MB) |
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© Peter Nyfeler, http://www.nyfeler-mueller.ch/
Email: Thomas[at]pano2qtvr[dot]com
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