3D Quicktime VR of World Bank

click and drag with your mouse left and right. Push the Shift key to zoom in, and the Ctrl key to zoom out.

If you have trouble with the standard Quicktime player, click here to get the free upgrade.

It enables viewing of VR panoramas & streamed video & audio!

At the forefront of immersive media is QuickTime™ Virtual Reality (QTVR) pow-ered by Apple Computer, Inc.'s QuickTime multimedia architecture for MacOS™, Win-dows™, and UNIX. QTVR enables users to manipulate their views of environments and objects from any perspective. QTVR mov-ies can be distributed on the Internet, embed-ded in web pages, or on disk as part of self-contained multimedia presentations. To "visit" a South American archaeological dig or "hold" a Peruvian artifact requires a mouse rather than a plane ticket. QTVR's affordability and ease of use makes it an ideal tool in the hands of both teachers and stu-dents for curriculum development and project enhancement. For those that aren't ready for the inclusion of electronic media in their les-sons and projects, panorama software also enables one to create traditional panoramic images from a sequence of normal photographs. QTVR assists in both unlocking cre-ativity in teachers and making abstractions concrete for learners. Let 's go to the movies,QTVR that is When we say movie, we normally think of a linear motion picture or video sequence that features visual and audio elements. QTVR movies can be linear, but there is a bidirec-tional element inherent to every QTVR pre-sentation- the viewer can pan left, right, up, or down. We can rotate an object clockwise or counterclockwise, an, if we so desire, on any axis.

In addition to motion in the physi-cal sense, we can use QTVR to step forward and backward through a period of time or a sequence of states. The possibilities are lim-itless. With Apple Computer's continued commitment to grow the QuickTime archi-tecture and third party developers bringing to market ever-more sophisticated, yet easy to use tools, a growing number of educators and artists will choose QTVR as a means of communication and expression. In addition to adding directional sound to a QTVR pan-orama, look for features that will further ex-tend the interaction of QTVR with other me-dia and applications. QTVR movies are of two basic types: single node and object- add links between these and a scene is created. QuickTime VR single-node movies are com-prised of a dozen or more still images blended together to form a continuous panoramic scene. The exception to this is when a single panoramic drawing or painting becomes the source. The viewer may scroll through the panorama in any direction, zooming in and out to examine detail at any point. Ordinarily, the resulting image resembles a cylinder with the viewer's eye positioned at a point on its axis. A panorama need not cover a full 360. Any field of view can be rendered as a panoramic movie ,and,as all QTVR movies start out as a single blended image, they can be saved and printed as static flat images too. Multinode scenes tie two or more panora-mas together via linked hot-spots within each movie. These links make virtual tours pos-sible across small bandwidths as well as in richly detailed presentations on CD.