PhotoWarp 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.
You can use auto-fallback in a Web Script to show a FlashVR or Java panorama if QuickTime is unavailable.
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. Note that one-shot sources cannot image the area below the camera or behind the mirror, so you cannot look all the way up or down in only one shot.
Either QuickTime VR format generates a single .mov
file that can be played back in any application that supports QuickTime. This makes QuickTime VR a good choice for e-mailing panoramas, since only a single file is needed.
QuickTime web site: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
FlashVR provides a perspective-corrected panorama viewer in Flash. The Macromedia Flash player 6 has wide availability on all platforms, and provides a good alternative to viewers without QuickTime or a Java virtual machine installed. PhotoWarp includes a license for the basic version of the FlashVR Framework that can be uploaded to any web site.
The FlashVR output format generates a pano.swf
file for each panorama. flashvr.swf
is the FlashVR viewer itself. The panorama can only be displayed properly with a web script.
This version of FlashVR does not provide support for hot spots or customized preloading screens. You can purchase a version of the FlashVR Framework with these capabilities from the FlashVR web site.
FlashVR Framework web site: http://www.flashvr.de/
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.
The Zoom Viewer format creates a cylindrical JPEG image and an .ivr
file that contains display information. panoapplet.jar
is the Zoom viewer itself. The panorama can only be displayed properly with a web script.
iseemedia web site: http://www.iseemedia.com/
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. A Java virtual machine must be present and activated in the browser in order to view such a panorama. PTViewer offers a similar user experience to QuickTime without requiring a download.
The PTViewer format creates a spherical JPEG image. ptviewer.jar
is PTViewer itself. The panorama can only be displayed properly with a web script.
Panorama Tools web site: http://webuser.fh-furtwangen.de/~dersch/
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 the same file back into PhotoWarp as a source.
If you will be unwarping an image to an image file for editing, be sure to save in a lossless file format such as TIFF or PNG. This will prevent generational loss when the image is re-compressed for viewing.
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.
This format generates six plain image files, one for each face of a cube. Each cube face image is suffixed with an initial for its direction, N, S, E, W (for North, South, East and West) and T, B (for Top and Bottom). This format is useful for post-processing cube faces in a separate application, e.g. to produce a full cubic panorama. Third-party tools can be used to re-assemble the images into a QuickTime VR Cube.
A thumbnail is simply a small image file of pre-defined dimensions. 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.
Thumbnail outputs can use a standard cylindrical projection, or a spherical or perspective projection depending upon the look desired. Thumbnails can actually be created with any dimensions, so this format can be used as a convenient way to make image files of a particular size.
A perspective thumbnail will show the initial view of the panorama identically to any viewer. You can use this as a preview
or click-thru
image by setting the same dimensions as your panorama viewer and choosing the Perspective projection.
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.
General settings for images, viewer formats
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.
Dimensions are the physical pixel size of a generated image file. Dimensions cannot be changed directly except for thumbnails. To change dimensions of an image, adjust the Resolution slider.
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.
PhotoWarp is not restricted to the display sizes listed here. To choose your own dimensions, click in the text box and type any size you like, "800 x 600" for instance. Press Return and the dimensions will be accepted.
For cylindrical and spherical image files, there is a choice for the file type to generate. Typically JPEG will be chosen for web delivery. For uncompressed files, you can also save as a TIFF or PSD (Photoshop) file. Other formats are available as well.
If a source image has 16 bits per channel, choosing a TIFF file type can preserve the 16 bits per channel when processing. The Allow 16 bit per channel processing
preference must also be enabled. This is useful if you plan to post-process images from PhotoWarp.
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.
Compression settings
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 for higher compression ratios; PNG, TIFF and others for lossless compression, and several others. Certain codecs that may be available are incompatible with QuickTime VR; these are not normally displayed in PhotoWarp.
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 quality setting 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.
Image settings
Image settings are not available for QTVR Cubic or Cube face outputs, as the image filters do not work consistently across multiple images.
Auto Levels
performs identically to the Adobe Photoshop function of the same name. The contrast of the image is stretched to fill the entire range from black to white. This results in an overall improvement in contrast and often brighter colors.
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. The Amount
slider controls the level of sharpening to perform.
Thumbnail settings
Thumbnails are small images used primarily for web index pages to look at several panoramas at a glance. They may also be used for preview images, or to create an image file with precise dimensions. Thumbnails are always saved as JPEG image files.
Projection
determines the appearance of the thumbnail image, which can be a traditional cylindrical or spherical projection, or a perspective projection of the default view. Using the perspective projection, you can create a "Preview" image, for example, that is identical to the default view of the interactive panorama.
Unlike image formats, thumbnails can have their dimensions specified explicitly. With a cylindrical or spherical projection, the full panorama will be stretched to fit into the specified dimensions.
QTVR settings
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 a QTVR with a watermark
overlay, just select a movie with the desired watermark in-place. 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 watermark. Similarly, this can be used to copy wired sprite tracks or skins.
In PhotoWarp 2.0, Based on Movie was frequently used to add an auto-rotate sprite to the movie to allow the panorama to rotate automatically. This capability is supported directly from the Source Settings pane in PhotoWarp 2.5. Be sure to remove your auto-rotate sprite movie from a job if you use the new functionality to prevent unexpected behavior.
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.
FlashVR settings
FlashVR uses a clever technique to show perspective-corrected panoramas using the Flash viewer. There is a compromise between the smoothness of this perspective correction and playback performance. Medium or High correction values will give the best looking results, but performance will be slow. A low correction value will be fast, but 'blocky' looking.
This is equivalent to the Quality parameter passed to the Flash plug-in. Higher values give smoother results, but somewhat slower performance.