360-degree photos

[norfy]

Hi there, I hope this is the right category and that somebody might have some advice for me.

I'm a web designer putting together a proposal for an Estate Agency to redesign their site. One thing they would like to have on the site is 360-degree virtual tours.

Doing a bit of investigation on this has turned up different methods from using a third party source to produce them for you (quite expensive) to purchasing a panoramic tripod? with set markers to rotate the camera around. Even saw the 360one VR lens that does it all in one shot.

I'm looking to get a 360-degree jpg that I can then drop into a java applet to display on a webpage, so would obviously use some stitching software to tie multiple shots together to create the jpg if needed.

What advice can anybody give to acheive this goal. ie products to use, methods to adopt etc

Many thanks in advance for your help.

Regards to all

Mark

[dolph]

A good place top start.....

http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~dersch/

This is the software for stitching should you go down this route...

Quicktime VR is one way to do it. I am not up to date with what is available; I used to use a coolpix 950 with wide angle attachment. I did some stitching just with Photoshop; I can't remember the other software I used. I didn't use any special hardware and my poor stitching showed.

If taking multiple shots and splicing them, a tripod and spirit level is really neccessary (quite cheap video tripods have bubble levels), and a way to rotate the camera around the optical centre of the lens (this prevents parallax differences between adjacent shots). You probably also should use manual (fixed) exposure, so that adjacent pictures are matched in exposure. Auto-exposure will vary the exposure for adjacent shots, and you or the stitching software will have to make adjustments.

You need a wider angle lens than the typical point & shoot has. 35mm equivalent isn't wide enough; you need 20 or 24mm. You ideally need a lens which the stitching software knows about, so that it knows the exact distortion needed to splice the images instead of iusing trial and error. You need quite lot of images (eg 12-15) for a full panorama. Or you can use a fisheye lens, provided the stitcher knows about it to transform to the right shape.

If I were looking at doing it now, I would seriously consider using what they call Ajax; i.e. not java applets or quicktime (because they need the visitor to have software installed) but javascript & CSS. Take a look at maps.google.co.uk where you can drag the map around and zoom it. However Quicktime VR will do it all more naturally, including linking rooms together with clickable "hot" areas.

google "panorama stitching software" and/or visit Quicktime VR

[norfy]

Ok, thanks guys. I think I am sorted now with software and ways to display the image, but what I need advice on now is the best way to take these photos, what hardware to use, like cameras that ghost the previous photo to allow you to line up, or fish eye lenses, rotating tripods etc.

I heard of an Estate Agent with a motorised tripod that he set up in the room and it spins around taking photos while he steps out the room?... is this possible?

Remebering that these guys are Estate Agents and so techinical know-how might not be the best and budgets for equipment could well be limited.

I'm after low cost hardware solutions and methods... please.

Many thanks again for your time.

Mark

try www.kaidan.com

see what your stitchin software supports in the way of cameras/wideangle/fisheye

I honestly think it's beyond the average estate agent, but perhaps you could train up one member of staff.

[MarkE19]

My Canon S30 camera has a photostich feature where it splits the LCD in half and displays the previous shot to make it easy to line up. the camera was supplied with Canon Photostich software to stich the multiple shots back together. Although I've never done a 360 degree shot, this is an option within the software.
The S30 is now an old model, but I think the latest model is the S80 and I'm sure other Canon cameras also have this feature.

Mark.

[norfy]

Cheers ancientgeek, I've been looking at that 360one VR lens by Kaidan, and also found something similar.

MarkE19 - I waas talking to a guy at work who has a similar feature on his camera, so this might be an option. I've also got the Canon Photostich software (got it with my camera) so may look into that a bit more.

Cheers again for your help.
Mark

[longleyc]

This panorama I created could have easily been a 360 degree view if I wished. Just a few more software clicks away. Its zoomable and theres enough detail in it.

http://cap.vapor.com/~gasser/Dover.htm

You certainly dont need new lenses! You just need a tripod and a camera and some common sense. If you lock the tripod in one position just take overlapping shots and use the pano or 360 VR method in suitable software. Theres so much to choose from but dont use that bloated Quicktime format, its crap.

Javascript is a good idea as a virtual java machine is on most computers (even though M$ breached Sun`s copyright in the normal fashion to implement its own version - nothing changes with M$). Java applets are pretty common and installed by lots of software without you even knowing it.

If my pano works in your browser, then you had it installed without your knowledge!

If its web graphics and your a designer them optimisation is important to you. People just hate waiting around for web pages to load. 30 seconds to long to load and Im off. So expensive lenses and large filesizes isnt the answer.

I do some work for an american company. I know they have a person working on such a thing for Realtors in the US. I will ask the software they use and get back to you.

I hope youre charging the estate agents a shed load of cash. I hate them all.
Liars, cheats and schmoozers.

I don't entrely agree with longleyc, although I am in no way an expert on this subject, I have been a keen photographer and a professional programmer most of my life.

Although you don't need a very wide angle lens, or to make sure the camera is rotated about the optical centre of the lens when you are doing distant exterior panoramas, you do need both to give a good impression of a domestic interior. To do proper 360 degree (or close to 360 degree) in all directions requires the player to distort the images in real time as the visitor pans & tilts; this isn't neccessary for horizontal-only distant panoramas. These things have little to do with download file size, which is mainly determined by the number of pixels your stitched image has.

Javascript is of course nothing to do with Java and doesn't have to be installed. Java wasn't installed on my Windows XP Pro machine as initially supplied (standard MS OEM install). I'm all in favour of Java, but many people don't have it installed, and it can be a bit slow to get going when started.

The Ajax idea is to combine javascript, CSS, and some other trickery to do everything needed in the browser, without using any plugins (Java, quicktime) that people may not have. I don't know if anyone's done a Flickr type service for panos, but it would be worth searching for. This would be a lightweight and fast loading way to do simple panos. But it would require a reasonably modern browser.

Because MS look like loosing their monopoly over the next couple of years, I'd definitely avoid anything involving (client side) VBscript or activex.

[norfy]

Thanks longleyc, I can see your image fine, nice one. My reason for looking into the simgle lens shot 360one VR, is that it will be used be non-techy people and if all they have to do is put the tripod in the middle of the room, set the timer and leave the room, then I'm sure they would prefer that instead of taking 12-15 shots around a room.

If I was doing it for them then I would probably take the multiple shots and then stitch, but I doubt they will want to take the time.

ancientgeek - I'll take a look at the code for that Ajax method and see how simple it is to implement.

Sp forgetting the cost implications for the moment (as it's not my money), does anybody have anything bad to say about those 360-degree lens that take a circular shot and then un wraps it in software. Like this: http://www.red-door.co.uk/pages/prod...es/360one.html

Thanks for your continued advice.

Mark

Looks ideal to me. You might want to test drive it before committing though. YOu might want to make sure that you can get a "normal" flat panoramic image out (ie one you print as a long rectangle) that can be processed into other formats than QTVR. This format would be the one that could be fairly easily programmed with javascript & CSS on the client side.

[Applespider]

Coming from a different angle, you might be wise to ask the client whether they think it will be used by viewers. It's probably a great revenue stream to them if they charge the seller cash to have it as a value-added feature.

We implemented lots of expensive technology to enable customers to zoom into product photos since our web development team 'wanted' to do it and marketing though tit was cool. How many of our customers used it (and I work for one of the UK's biggest sites)? Less than 1% - we've now stopped licensing it and gone for a simpler method.

I've bought 2 properties after 'shopping' online for them; I rarely used the 360 'tours' since they often required plug-ins which office IT won't allow and they never gave a true impression. The wideangle always made them more inaccurate and led to disappointment on viewing since they were never as spacious as they'd appeared. I'd suggest making sure that they have accurate floor-plans and photographs which are easy to view, print out and visualise from. Or at least make sure that they've done their customer research to find it out if it would be used (contacts in other agencies perhaps?) before they blow cash/your time on it?

[norfy]

cheers Applespider, it is a good point raised. It was the client who came to me with the request as they saw their competition doing it and are convinced they are losing business becauseof it. To them doing the 360-degree photos is not about providing a service to potential buyers, it's all about showing to vendors that they can market the property in more ways than other agents... thus gaining more properties on to the books.

I've got a meeting with them this friday, so I'll see what they say.

Thanks for taking the time on this post. You work for a big website? ... they got any jobs going? ;-)

Cheers
Mark

[longleyc]

Originally Posted by ancientgeek

Javascript is of course nothing to do with Java and doesn't have to be installed. Java wasn't installed on my Windows XP Pro machine as initially supplied (standard MS OEM install). I'm all in favour of Java, but many people don't have it installed, and it can be a bit slow to get going when started.

The JVM i seen working on XP Pro was obviously a user install from Microsoft of an earlier version of JDK. I never realised they stopped supplying it on XP instals. It certainly wasnt a Sun install, which im told works anyway on M$ OS.
To clear up any confusion : Javascript (by Netscape) interpreted by the browser. Java (Sun) requiring compilation server side and web Applets to run or compiled and run in JVM on any host.
I subsequently found that as M$ breached Sun Java by:

Fragmenting the Java platform;
Flooding the market with incompatible Java Runtime Environments;
Significantly limiting Sun's distribution channels for the Java Runtime Environment;
Intentionally interfering with the development of Java-based applications for compatible runtimes;
Copyright infringement resulting from Microsoft's distribution of an unlicensed implementation of the Java Runtime Environment;

M$ stopped it on XP because the breach forced them to supply the older versions, which they didnt want to.

Norfy,

As promised, the two cheaper programs that are used by my american associate is 3D Vista www.3Dvista.com and
www.ipix.com.
What some people are forgetting is that the VR market is potentially active in the high price housing market and no doubt this is what you client wants. As normal the US leads and the UK follows.

Maybe you want to visit those sites and check out the specs req. As youre a web designer im not going to tell you how to suck eggs. PHP, CSS and Javascript are the most implemented coding now found on most sites. I think these offer a great combination.

Glad you liked my demo pano. I just needed a quick demo for a some freinds in the US of my home town. As Im so damn finicky about crap overbloated web sites I wouldnt unleash that bloated page on the public Im sure those links can provide some insight to the creativity of the software.

[norfy]

cheers again longleyc, I heard about ipix about 5 years ago, when working for a property software company, before I moved into web development. I know these virtual tours have been around for a long time, but I guess it's been the cost that has kept them to only the prestigious of agencies.