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?

The software to do it. You'd need to make a quicktime VR or other panoramic technology platform product - all of which typically require a commercial product over and above a normal panorama stitching program.

The images themselves are able to do it (see the polar projections) - it's just the means to deliver a 'panable' format that is the stumbling block.

Thanks Doug. I suppose the next best thing would be extending a flat pano to say 1.5 revolutions. Still I'm surprised that there isn't a cheap-and-cheerful solution that has become routine by now. As you say the data are all there to do it and I can't see why the software required would be other than extremely simple. ('All pixels move one space left except the leftmost which replaces the rightmost - repeat until finger is removed from arrow key' ) I know I'm being totally naive, and possibly UMSF-centred. Presumably there is insufficient interest in panoramas generally among the wider public for the big software companies to provide it as a standard facility.

MMB is your friend

No doubt this could be done with Flash.

In fact...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=f...G=Google+Search

Thanks for posting that link.

Those packages look very interesting and are impressive at what they do. However all the examples I've looked at via that link are doing the much more sophisticated job of perspectival re-projection, so that shapes within the image change as you pan round (and up and down). I'm not surprised the creators of such software expect some income from its use, nor that its main customers are developers and property merchants.

Now I'm a great fan of perspective views (including those posted here and on MMB) when that is what you want in a given situation. However I'd still like the ability simply to stitch the two ends of a 360 degree cylindrical panorama together so I don't hit the buffers when scanning around the horizon. That's such a simple idea I'm surprised it's not a free and generally available picture format. Maybe there is an easy way to do it - if anyone finds one please let me know!

Hi ngunn,

Give me a link to a panorama you like. My Flash-fingers are flexing!

Andy

It was James's latest Home Plate one that prompted me to start the thread:
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~jcanvin/mer/index.html#A1325

though in fact our system chokes on the full version so I was looking at half res.

The first time I felt consciously frustrated by panoramas having ends was was when the Husband Hill summit view came out, and it's been bugging me ever since.

My favourite of the qtvr-type panning viewers is FSPViewer. Simple and fast and uses ordinary jpegs rather than special formats.

I understand that that's not what you're after, though. It should be trivial to code an ordinary image viewer (eg Irfanview for windows) to apply "periodic boundary conditions" to identify the left and right ends of an image. No image transformations/distortions would need to be applied. Of course the image would need to be a full 360, (presumably cyllindrical?), for the ends to seamlessly join but that's not a big deal. Let us know if you find a viewer that does this!

Thanks for your interest fredk. If none of the amazing image experts assembled here come up with a solution then I fear my chances are negligible! However just maybe someone reading this thread will think it a worthwhile project to create some sort of one-click 'panable' link along the lines of the special zoomable viewer provided for looking at the HiRise images. For example it would 'add value' to NASA's own published panoramas at a stroke, and if freely shared (like the images themselves) could also serve the enthusiast community.

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

Wonderful, thanks !
The being there factor is excellent. A 3D version would make this perfect

AndyG that works perfectly and the result is brilliant! (Though I got a bit dizzy before I realised I could actually control it!) I hope this becomes standard for 360 degree views. The feeling of freedom it provides comes as a delight and a huge relief.

Thank you thank you thank you . . . .

Nice work Andy!

Next time I'll make sure the gradient of the artificial sky is more vertical.

James

I'd be interested to know, now that you've done it for one image, how much work will you have to do on each further image you want to 'panify'? Can it be automated so that any image can be opened this way even by computer dummies like me?

Also, while you're 'playing' (to such excellent effect) - once you've got around to all the big MER 360s there are also some inward-looking 360s to consider: the map of Titan for example (or Iapetus, or Ganymede, or Venus, or . . .)

Thanks for the comments! To answer the questions...

Widening the applications of the program:

I think the most practical way to achieve this would be to use a very small external .xml file to load the .swf with the desired image, the image height and width, and where north is. The resultant (picture-less) .swf file size would then be tiny - less than 10k. The scripting in the Flash would need to be re-written to load the image and calculate the correct sizing/scroll rates from any particular image's data - but that's not difficult.

A user would need to amend the xml file for use with different images, however a simple edit & save in Notepad would suffice.

It would be much more work to completely automate this process: i.e. select a file from a list and let 'er rip.

Inward looking 360's:

This is similarly straightforward. Though for global views there'd be extreme distortion at the poles unless the image was treated. This would give me nightmares, I think: the maths is ok (with a bit of cheating) and I believe Flash is good at squeezing/stretching bitmap images (I've personally got no experience of that), but it would run much less smoothly unless the image sizes were small - which perhaps rather destroys the idea of the big panorama.

3d Views:

There's obviously no problem entering an anaglyphic panorama as a single image. And it would be ok to enter a separate left and right panorama - a semi-transparent image offset over another is ok in Flash. The only hassles I can see with that would be getting the transparency (alpha) and the offset right, but a slider/controller would sort that out.

Andy

Andy your efforts are really very much appreciated. Of course the ultimate goal would be full automation (or panoramas that are posted in this format in the first place) but if you assemble a semi-automated version and provide instructions at a really elementary level I will do my best to educate myself accordingly. That's assuming that whatever needs to be done by the user is permitted on our college network. In the meantime I look forward to viewing any more ready-made ones you decide to make and post here.

I'll also add that I'm more than happy to add this feature to all the past and future 360 pans on my site (Including Lyell which is going to be one any sol now ) if Andy is happy to provide the code (with some fool proof instructions. ) Full credit and kudos would of course be given.

James

James - that is wonderful news. The results will, I'm sure, set a new benchmark in fully user-friendly endless panoramas. I had not dared to hope that this would happen so soon. Let's hope it catches on.

...and absolutely not necessary.

The pans, James, are a pleasure to see, use and work with. You've done all the hard work (with the help, I suppose, of a few hundred million $'s from the US, and Doug's wonderful forum to bring them to the wider world!) Let me dig into the ones already in existance and I'll see what I can come up with over the next few days.

"Provide the code"? - ngunn, we really are talking paleolithicware here. It's not going to be difficult for anyone to make the endless pan they want. Download the player, download the pan you want, change a couple of lines in a file, save it, sit back and enjoy.

Andy, still spinning on homeplate.

James, Andy - any more news on the endless panoramas front? Just curious, not impatient or anything.

If there is will you post here? (or send me a message) Though obviously not part of any technical discussion I wouldn't want to miss something nice coming out of it.

Andy,

I just saw your "endless panorama" today. Just fantastic! That's what panoramas were meant to be.

I've been lurking in the back for many months and just signed up recently, and I'm amazed at what you guys manage to do with the images. I'd like to join the fun, but my work and my family have priority. So thanks for doing what I can't. Keep it up!

"Presumably there is insufficient interest in panoramas generally among the wider public for the big software companies to provide it as a standard facility."

Above is meant to be a forum "quote." I've yet to fully absorb the posting format.

Once upon a time, a century ago or so, the Panorama was the hottest thing going, the biggest urban attraction before the era of the moving picture. And the panorama was indeed "connected at the ends," in giant viewing rooms to which a couple would stroll of an evening. World-wide travel was difficult, and this was a way to compensate. If I have my history straight a fellow named Frederick Catherwood produced in New York City Panorama viewing rooms on the order of 100 feet in diameter showing Jerusalem, for example, and, another, Mayan ruined cities.

Atlanta still has something you can still go to called the Cyclorama, a 360 degree Panorama painting depicting a pivotal moment in the civil-war-between-the-states battle of Atlanta.

It is really quite a shame, in my view, that our digital era -- we see 3-D inside a flat screen -- has seen the corruption of this term.

Yes, join those ends up, even if it's only a big enough circle you can stick your head into!

chuckclark, have you checked out the one Andy posted in post 11 of this thread? It's brilliant, and I'm hoping we'll see more like it soon.

Incidentally I was fascinated to read in your post about Catherwood's Cyclorama. I'm a huge fan of his artwork and have a book about his Mayan exploits with Stephens on my living-room shelf.

I'm sure those theatre-sized panorama/cycloramas will make a comeback. Mars and Titan are likely to remain as inaccessible to most people through the 21st century as Jerusalem and the Yucatan were in the 19th, so the potential of the medium is reborn. Museum architects take note!

Hi Andy your moving panarama is great, more please I particularly like the degree markers at the top.
wide screen would be nice too.
There have been so many superb 360 degree views taken so far and all would be enhanced by this treatment.
Thanks

Roy

Thanks for all the positive feedback, and please accept my apologies for not getting the more flexible panorama tool finished. I have to blame real life, but - with clear air in sight - I should be free to get things done later this week.

And then maybe I'll have the time to return to my other hobby, as well...

Andy