Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Virtual Pictures

I came across this site year's ago and then promptly forgot about it. With all the rain up here in the bay area, I was again search for stuff and came across the site again. I really like the idea of 360 degree pictures (just move your cursor to rotate the pictures). I thought everyone might enjoy the 360 pictures presented on this website.

All the available pictures are here: http://www.virtualparks.org/html/quality-list.html

Forester Pass:

http://www.virtualparks.org/scenes/ZdmATvXi9-q9ZBpQfXmltdA.html

paul

I like that site, but Quicktime VR is pretty dead these days. I can' imagine carrying one of these $$$ tripod heads and messing with the complicated sofware I actually had to do a 3 day training on once back in the 90s.

Now, well, at least from a creator point of view, I am all with technology that allows me to bring a 4oz camera and so all this without a tripod. Here's an example, done without much attention for perfect image overlap, cheesy Canon A590is pocket camera, free Microsoft ICE software (yes, you'll need the Silverlight plugin to watch these, but that's a lot easier to isntall than Quicktime player)

http://didnt.doit.wisc.edu/outdoor/Muir2009/photo_gallery/pano_page_wanda_lake.htm

and one done with a Nikon D40, again handheld, images just thown into the application and uploaded the result to the web server

http://didnt.doit.wisc.edu/outdoor/Muir2009/photo_gallery/glen_pass_360/glen_360_stitch.html

zoom in and drag around. Same thing, but software to create is free and almost idiot-proof, plus you can just stand on a pass and shoot a few overlapping frames without a tripod and get the above results.

Oh man! I didn't realize there was such a science to creating good panorama pictures.

Look at these fancy 360 precision panoramic tripod heads.

And here is a tutorial on Making 360 Degree Panoramas. Check out the beautiful pic at the bottom.

(Note: There is a related thread here: Whitney panoramas )

here's a real rig - called pixelorb - costs about $13,000

http://www.peaceriverstudios.com/pixorb/index.html

they used it for the 17 gigapixel yosemite pano here:

http://www.yosemite-17-gigapixels.com/

and then check this one out:

http://www.xrez.com/yose_proj/yose_deepzoom/index.html

zoom in and once you see little pix, keep on zooming right into those. Mouse wheel is fastest to zoom

SL deep zoom software - tutorial not necessary - drop a collection of images that overlap into the main window, wait 10 mins, then maybe bend it straight and crop if desired, choose JPEG or Silverlight Deep zoom format and save. done. Free.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/

I'd much rather have a finished product with the quick time system then a single photo, I have only put one photo together using the 5Dmrk2 that was a 360 and the image file was over 450MB, far to large to mess with.

I love the last line on that page:  "A framed backpack is recommended for use in the backcountry."

As soon as the WHA gets 1000 (paying) members, we can set one of them up as the Whitney Web Cam.

...Use the MOUSE WHEEL to zoom in!

Rogue, AxeMan's 360 view here is only a little over 1 MB, and it looks quite good.