[X] My Assistant

[ngunn]

Viewing the latest wonderful Home Plate mosaics prompts a thought that has often occurred to me before. Why isn't it possible to join up the ends of a panorama to allow for continuous panning in either direction? On the face of it this would seem to be a relatively simple thing (hugely less complicated than a full virtual reality package) and highly desirable for 360 degree views, yet it's never done. Can somebody explain to me where the catch lies?

[AndyG]

Hi ngunn,

I've stuck together the quarter res. image created by James into a simple Flash package. Left to go left, right to go right.

It's hosted here in an html page. Bewarned - it's over 900kb! Obviously 99% of that is the image, and it might fall over without a preloader on bad/slow connections. If it doesn't work, try downloading the source shockwave file from here (right click and save-link-as) and drop it into a browser - or run it on a standalone player.

I'm only duplicating the image twice in Flash, so there's a slight bump at the transition. A triplication (moving one image while off-stage) would be smoother. But the pan's ok, I think.

I've added 5 ten-degree markers at the page top, with a rough angle measured on the middle one (taking the right edge of Eldorado to be ~north). The seam is at about 189 degrees, really only visible in the sky, so it's a great job, James!

If you right click you get the default flash option to zoom in. I've spent a happy few minutes looking at the horizon as I spin in my spacesuit boots, by getting the ten degree markers the right distance apart at a reasonable viewing range. I think you are right in that continuous panoramas do bring a certain something to the views people are making...it frees up where you want to look at - it is more like being there.

Since I can see the potentials, I may well have to play with this further...

Regards,

Andy