PhotoWarp 2 supports a variety of output formats to present panoramas to a viewer. As part of its batch processing capability, a PhotoWarp job may contain any number of formats. Each format will generate its own set of files as appropriate for that viewer.
The following output formats are supported by PhotoWarp 2:
QuickTime VR is a component of Apple's QuickTime media platform, which can be viewed on any Mac or Windows computer with the free QuickTime plugin installed. QuickTime VR was one of the earliest panoramic image viewers available, and is one of the most common. QTVR
is known for high quality display and the ability to use advanced QuickTime features to combine panoramas with other types of media, such as video or Flash.
QuickTime VR cylinders are the most common format of QuickTime used on the web, and is a good fit for the field-of-view produced by a 360 One VR. The QTVR Cylinder
format in PhotoWarp produces QuickTime VR panoramas that are ready to distribute over the web or on CD. QuickTime must be installed on the viewing computer to see the panorama. If a user without QuickTime encounters this on a web page, they can be prompted to automatically download and install QuickTime on their computer.
QuickTime VR Cubic is a variant of QuickTime VR. QuickTime versions 5.0 and higher include full support for Cubic VRs, while earlier versions of QuickTime will display a slightly distorted version of the panorama for compatibility. Instead of a cylindrical projection for image data, six faces of a cube are used to produce an image map. This is useful mainly when a fully immersive panorama is required, granting the ability to look straight up or down.
See Apple's QuickTime page at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
Zoom Viewer is a common Java-based panoramic image viewer produced by iseemedia (formerly known as MGI). Java-based viewers do not require any special plugins to be installed on a user's computer. A Java virtual machine must be present and activated in the browser in order to view such a panorama. Zoom is an increasingly popular format for real estate web sites in particular, and is often used as a plugin-free alternative to QuickTime.
Visit iseemedia's Zoom Viewer Developer Resources.
EyeSee360 is not affiliated with iseemedia.
PTViewer is a component of the open source Panorama Tools, created by Prof. Helmut Dersch. PTViewer is a Java-based viewer that is a popular alternative viewer. PTViewer offers a similar user experience to QuickTime without requiring a download.
The Panorama Tools web site is closed as of this writing. Mirrors are maintained at several locations. You can search the web for mirror sites.
These formats are used to generate plain image files from PhotoWarp. This can be useful, for example, to edit unwarped imagery in a third-party application such as Adobe Photoshop prior to delivery. PhotoWarp encodes the proper unwarping parameters in these files, so once edited they can be easily converted to their final format by passing them back into PhotoWarp as a source.
These two projections may also be useful to use raw projected images in a viewer not supported natively by PhotoWarp, or in computer graphics applications such as 3D environment maps.
A thumbnail is simply a small image file. They are used most commonly on web sites listing several panoramas to provide a preview of the full resolution pano. Web script outputs can create thumbnail pages like this automatically.
Thumbnails are a convenient way to produce images of a desired size. Just enter the pixel dimensions of the output image to create a cylindrical image of a specific size.
Web Scripts are a special output format used to create web pages for output panoramas. Web Scripts can be added, removed and named just like any other format, but instead of producing a panoramic image, text files (typically web pages) are generated instead based on the other formats present in the job.
Web Scripts are discussed in detail in Chapter 9: Web Scripts.
Output formats offer a range of setting for the size, appearance and behavior of panoramas. The settings are grouped into common categories, often shared by several formats. Each category appears in its own tab in the window.
Resolution determines the number of pixels in generated images. Resolution is expressed in pixels per degree (px/º), a natural unit of resolution for panoramic images. At 100% resolution, the output panorama will have about the same resolution as the source image. At less than 100%, PhotoWarp will produce smaller images. Resolutions above 100% add pixels to the output by interpolating the image, which may be useful to preserve detail when post-processing image files. Normally, you will choose an output resolution of 100% for optimal results.
Setting the resolution slider above 100% does not add detail to the output image; it only adds pixels. PhotoWarp cannot restore details that were not captured in the source.
Applies to interactive panorama viewers, such as QuickTime VR, Zoom Viewer or PTViewer. This is the size of the window in which the panorama will be displayed. Display size is not related to the resolution of the image. Click the arrow next to the text field to choose from preselected display sizes. Three sizes (240 x 180, 320 x 240, and 480 x 360) are in a 4:3 aspect ratio, typical for most digital pictures. Another three sizes (300 x 200, 375 x 250, 450 x 300) are in a wide aspect ratio of 3:2, which is typical of 35mm film slides. Alternately, you can choose your own display size by clicking in the text field and typing the dimensions you like.
Controls the name of files generated by the output format. Filenames are generated as follows:
Prefix + Source Name + Suffix + '.' + Extension
Prefix and suffix are the values which appear here. You can type any prefix and/or suffix you like to alter the name of the output file. You cannot use certain characters that are not permitted in filenames (such as '/', '\', and others). Also, files generated by an output format cannot conflict with those of other output formats. If this occurs, a dialog will appear prior to unwarping, allowing prefixes to be changed so they no longer conflict.
The source name is the name typed into the Save dialog box when unwarping (for single sources), or the name shown in the Source list.
The file extension is set appropriately by the output format, and may not be changed.
Only shown for QuickTime VR formats. Compression determines the particular codec used to compress the VR image. Typically, Photo - JPEG
works well and offers the best compatibility. QuickTime offers many other compression formats that can be used as well. Some codecs include Sorenson and MPEG4 for higher compression ratios; PNG, TIFF and others for lossless compression, and more.
Determines the quality of the compressed image. The exact behavior depends on the compression setting. There is a trade-off between quality and file size, so increasing the quality setting will result in a larger file.
By checking Target File Size
and entering a value (in kilobytes) into the field, PhotoWarp will attempt to produce a file of the specified size. This is accomplished by reducing the Quality setting until the desired size is reached. If the initial Quality setting produces a file smaller than requested, this setting will have no effect. If the minimum quality setting produces a file larger than requested, the minimum size will be used.
If generated panoramas display annoying compression artifacts, settings should be adjusted to remove them. Increasing the target file size will reduce the presence of artifacts. To produce very small files, consider lowering the resolution in the General settings to reduce pixel count.
Enabling Sharpen Image
will perform an unsharp mask filter on the unwarped image, prior to compression. This can be useful to reduce "softness" in images without needing third party programs.
Minimum and maximum
restrict the amount of "zooming" the viewer can perform. For example, the minimum setting might be raised to prevent graininess from zooming in too far. Initial view
sets the zoom the viewer first sees when loading the panorama. Increasing this will widen the default field of view, leading to a crisper appearance.
Based on Movie is a simple solution to using features of QuickTime that are not supported natively by PhotoWarp. A movie selected with the Choose...
button will be copied and used as a basis for the QuickTime VR file produced.
For example, to create an auto-rotating QTVR, just select another QTVR movie with the desired behavior. The non-QuickTime VR related tracks in the movie will be copied into the output, which results in all movies generated by PhotoWarp having the auto-rotating behavior. Similarly, this can be used to produce watermark overlays, or skins.
The Disallow Save checkbox sets a flag in the movie that tells the QuickTime Plugin not to allow viewers to save the movie to their local hard drive through the popup menu. Additionally, changes cannot be saved to the movie, and tracks cannot be extracted through QuickTime Player. This provides a rudimentary level of copy protection for panoramas.
The QuickTime plugin can display a low-resolution preview of the panorama after only a small percentage of the movie has been downloaded. This is a fast start preview. Select the resolution of the preview in the popup as a fraction of the original size. To reduce the aliased appearance of a preview, check the Blur
box to perform a light blurring effect.
Affects the rendering of a panorama in QuickTime. Static quality is the rendering mode when the user is not panning. Dynamic quality is the mode while navigating the panorama. Typically dynamic quality is set to good
to deliver good rendering performance while moving, and static quality is set to better
to give a smoother steady picture. As of QuickTime 6, there is no difference in quality between better
and best
modes.