Quicktime Virtual Reality Photography
Apple Quicktime VR (QTVR) is a different kind of photography that permits viewing of 360-degree panoramas. One can look forward, backward or side to side to see anything the photographer could see in any direction. This type of photography is used quite frequently in travel and real estate presentations.
The panorama is created by shooting a series of photographs and then using specialized software to 'stitch' them together into one continuous display. After the 'stitching' process is complete, the software generates the virtual reality movie in which you can scroll the image in any direction.
The virtual reality movies on this page were shot with a variety of cameras. The early ones were shot with a traditional Minolta 35 mm SLR camera but using traditional cameras is a huge hassle as the images have to be scanned before they can be used. All of the recent movies were shot with a Canon S45 digital camera because it was so easy to load them into the computer afterward.
The software has evolved substantially since I first started shooting Quicktime VR movies. In the early days, Apple's Quicktime VR Authoring Studio was the only software that could do it but now there is quite a range of products for whichever platform you want to use. Please see the Quicktime VR Software page for more information on this.
Click on one of the icons below to fetch the corresponding virtual reality panorama back to your system.
Quicktime VR Selections
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Sydney, Australia |
I lived in Sydney as a child and my friend, Ron Ziemiecki, sent me a picture of how it looks now. This is the image converted into a Quicktime VR movie. |
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Bay View Apartment | This is the view from the balcony of my apartment overlooking Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. |
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Desert Rose |
The sand-dunes are actually the petals of a rose, giving something of a Georgia O'Keefe effect. |
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Jennifer |
Chrome bubbles rise from the water all around the model. Notice her reflection in the bubbles. The model is Jennifer, my niece. |
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University of Cincinnati | This is a complex of panoramas in which each one leads to another one. Whenever the cursor turns to an arrow, this means that you can click to move from one viewpoint to another. In this way, you can tour a large part of the University of Cincinnati machine room. (As mainframe computer rooms go, this isn't a very big one but it was home to me for quite a long time) |
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Angel | An angel figurine floats in a layer of clouds. Use your mouse to turn the figurine and view it from any side. |
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Flower Arrangement |
This is an object movie in which the flower arrangement can be viewed from all sides. I shot the photographs in my ex-studio and would have paid more attention to the background if I had known that the software would go to such pains to preserve it. |
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My Garage/Studio |
This is before the main wave of equipment arrived but it's one of the few panoramas I shot of it. |
