I just got a mail from Aaron Spence, and publish it here to help get the word out: “G’day Everyone, We’ve been deeply moved by the tragedy of the Victorian Bushfires. Wanting to do something, but being 2,000km away and with my funds invested in Panedia, I decided to create a site to sell large high quality prints, with all profits going to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

Please pass this link around to the people you know. My goal is not to divert funds already set aside for donation, but to sell to people who have already donated, or weren’t planning to, particularly from outside Australia. We’ve priced the prints at 1/2 what we normally sell them for, so they’re accessible to most. Thanks, Aaron Spence of panedia.com.”

As consequence of the good acceptance of the VR community, at Panodigg we thought we had to do things better, in order to improve the experience. That’s why we used another, more evolved template and made some customizations to it. We also changed the logo in what we think is more appropriate.

The last added feature is the EVB External Vote Button, which allows voting from the external site where the story link points to, or even if the button is on a completely different page then the story link is pointing to. A special code is also available for WordPress users.

You can see an example of the use of the EVB here:  (please scroll until you see the vote button)

DO U PANODIGG?

all the best
your Panodigg team

Exhibit and media design firm Ideum have cocked a snook at Microsoft with the launch of their MT2 Table, a multitouch-table which, at 50-inches running at 1280 x 720, is both larger and higher resolution than Microsoft’s Surface. The MT2 Table, which can respond to multiple points of contact across the display and recognize gestures, is intended for museum use, and as such has an aircraft-grade aluminum frame and thick tempered glass top. Underneath there’s a 2100 ANSI projector with a 2000:1 contrast ratio.

via Slashgear

Press Release:

Ideum Releases Ruggedized High-Resolution Multi-touch Table For Museums

CORRALES, New Mexico (February 4, 2009) Ideum, an exhibit and media design firm, has announced the release of the first ruggedized multi-touch, multi-user table built specifically for museums.

The MT Table supports multi-touch and multi-user interactions. It has a bright 50″ (diagonal) surface with a high-resolution (1280 x 720) display which is higher than Microsoft’s Surface multi-touch table. The large display also makes it easier to facilitate multiple simultaneous visitors interacting with computer programs through the use of multi-touch gestures. Visitors can use hand gestures to manipulate images or media or to interact with computer-based programs.

“We’ve been working with museums for a decade and we wanted to create a platform where visitors could interact with museum content, programs and one another in new and meaningful ways,” said Jim Spadaccini, Director of Ideum. “The intuitive nature of multi-touch interaction, the large surface and low table height: all of these factors contribute to the visitors experience. The table is both a physical and social platform, it does what the traditional computer kiosk cannot do.”

The table, which stands 31″ tall with heavy duty locking casters, is wheel-chair accessible and meets standard ADA requirements for height; an important consideration for museums. The table is automated and can safely shut itself down when the museum closes for the day.

The MT is also incredibly durable with a frame built of aircraft-grade aluminum and a surface of thick, tempered glass. All of the components of the MT Table are industrial grade and built to withstand the demands of busy museums, including hands-on science centers.

Ideum has partnered with Natural User Interface (NUI), a Swedish technology company specializing in multi-touch solutions to provide the base software package. Each table comes with NUI’s Snowflake Software a fast and reliable gesture recognition multi-touch software package. This software allows developers to create their own applications with Flash, C/C++/C#, Java, Python, and other programming languages.

Snowflake also comes with a set of basic applications: Viewer (media viewer with support for image and video media types), Draw (basic drawing application), 3D model viewer (.3ds and .obj file format support) and others. The MT table also includes TouchEarth (Google Earth with a multitouch interface).

Ideum is currently developing custom software for The Don Harrington Discovery Center in Amarillo, Texas and Vulcan Park and Museum in Birmingham, Alabama. These museums will have the first two tables, with installations scheduled for March. The installation for Vulcan Park and Museum will include two multi-touch kiosks making it one of the first permanent exhibits in the world to use multi-touch technology throughout the gallery space.

Ideum develops computer-based exhibits and installations for museums across North America. Since the firm was founded in 1999, it has worked on over 70 projects that have explored a variety of science, history, art, and cultural topics. Ideum-developed exhibits and Websites have won numerous awards over the years including; the American Association of Museums’ MUSE Awards, the Webby Awards, the Pirelli International Multimedia Awards, the Museums and the Web Conference “Best of the Web,” and other industry awards. To learn more, visit: www.ideum.com

I’m terribly late (apologies) with the new Issue 32 of VRMag, mainly due to 2 reasons: I had a child (most time-consuming hobby I ever had) and was busy setting up a new site for the VR community and beyond. VRMag 32 is in the works …
but meanwhile … I would like to invite you to take a few minutes to checkout:

Panodigg.com

Those familiar with Digg.com will immediately be at ease and understand that it’s a Digg site for the VR community,
for everybody else let me say that it’s a place where you can post stories with a thumbnail (if u wish) and a link to a panorama or a VR projects, that you particularly like or find interesting, be it your creation or from somebody else.

All the stories are published in the “upcoming” section of the site.
The community of Panodigg users will then vote and discuss them, and when a certain number of votes is achieved the stories are promoted to the front page in a very democratic way.
Finally a VR community site where no editor is in control but only the site users.
It is also a social site since you can create your complete profile, become friend with other users, private message with them, as well as tell friends about your stories (posts) and a lot more …

A few important things:

-Panodigg is not hosting panoramas
-We removed the nofollow tag so that each story title(link) becomes a good referrer for google
-RSS feeds are available for upcoming, published, and each category, you can even track a specific users posts if u wish.

Special thanks to the early users during the initial test/debugging phase.

what are you waiting for ? You’re just one click away from Your Daily Dose of fresh panoramas: Panodigg.com
Have fun !

All the best
marco

Thanks to Bernd Dohrmann you can experience the inside of a Halloween pumpkin, with spooky sound.

Three weeks before Halloween, Bernd’s son rushed to his dad asking for a huge pumpkin to place in front of the door. Bernd found a 37 kg one, at a farm not far away from where he lives. When he and his son had to decide about the grimace, they could not find a compromise and – for that reason – they carved three different ones. ….. in the VRMag article you can see more making of images and experience the interactive virtual reality panorama.

VRWay recently published Arounder Como-Lake.

Situated on the shores of Como Lake (a.k.a. Lario Lake), Como is a small city full of charme, able to enchant visitors from all around the world. Its history is connected to the Duchy of Milan and later on to the Austrian Empire, until it was liberated by Garibaldi, in what was to be known as the San Fermo’s battle.

Partially enclosed among old medieval walls, the city is a shopping heaven and – in the meantime – it is full of history, as the Dome, the San Fedele Church, the Broletto and the Casa del Fascio (to name but a fews) show.

The city and its region are worldwide famous for the villas which dot the landscape and which host famous personalities, such as George Clooney.

The lake and its small villages in the Come area are a vacation must for a lot of people (mainly English and German), who spend their Summers with the feet in the crystal clear water of the lake, fascinated by the beauties of places as Menaggio, Bellagio and Cernobbio.

Among many beautiful locations and sightseeing you can also enjoy a nice view on George Clooney’s Villa Oleandra in Lario.

Linking the Forth and Clyde Canal to the Union Canal, the Falkirk Wheel is the most modern structure used to connect basins all around the world. So said, if you’re barging in Scotland, forget the time needed to the water to move from dam to dam, waiting for enclosures to refill. 24 metres high (79 ft), the Wheel does everything by itself, replacing something as 11 locks in a single shot.

Designed by Nicoll Russell Studios and engineers Binnie Black and Veatch, the Wheel has been built by Butterley Engineering. Together, they did something unique: the only rotating boat lift of its kind, the Falkirk Wheel – in fact – doesn’t only connect Glasgow to Edinburgh, it even revives for recreational purposes, a water route which had fallen into disuse and it is considered today among the tourist attractions in Scotland. “The Falkirk Wheel Experience” offers roundtrip excursion.

Bill Ward took outstanding panoramic images of the Wheel, to view them and discover more about the Falkirk Wheel and Bill Ward go to the VRMag article.

The Polynesian islands were inhabited since AD 300 (let’s say it straight: somebody understood the meaning of the word “location”) and did not share a common story until they fell under French Protectorate in 1889. What is sure, is that they were visited by several explorers such as Ferdinand Magellan, Jacob Roggeveen, Samuel Wallis, Louis Antoine de Bougainville and James Cook, who fell all in love for the places.

34 years old, living in Tahiti (lucky you, Greg!), Gregory Panayotou wants everybody green with envy, when watching where he lives since 2005. Seriously, after two endless months of rains (with a Summer that began something as five days ago), you should have seen my face, while opening the panoramic images hosted in his blog, direct2brain.net.

Beautiful panoramas and more infos about Tahiti & French Polynesia and Gregory can be found in VRMag’s article.

Ayrton Camargo and Andréa Simões photographed Gisele Bündchen for “Jornal do Brazil”. Since the team is highly appreciated by the former newspaper’s digital editor Cristina de Luca, it was given carte blanche to approach the Fashion Rio Week and Collcci fashion shows. Since Gisele Bündchen is the Brazilian version of the American dream, and every Brazilianis in love with her, and every girl dreams about a similar path to glory, Ayrton and Andréa came up with the idea of transposing the dream in a VR.

To create it, Ayrton shot something as 250 pictures of Gisele Bündchen on her three appearances on stage, meanwhile being careful to keep the camera at the same exact point. The best ones were later mounted on the bubble during the night, in a frightening Photoshop and stitching work, to which Andréa added all the sounds.

Read more about Gisele, Ayrton, and the details about this incredible shooting. In the VRMag article you can view 3 interactive panoramas of Gisele Bündchen at Rio Fashion Week.

Tamas Varga is a restless soul, always busy with projects which enter into his mind and come out as a finished product, where aesthetic crosses VR photography.
One of those project has to do with panoramic photo albums in book’s formats. The business started within his city, Budapest and thereafter moved to Beijing. In both places, Tamas was able to capture great atmospheres, which take into consideration the soul of a place. Typical and at the same time unique spectacles are the leading thread of his images, which are accompanied by texts in English and Chinese.

Read more about this project and view beautiful interactive panoramas in VRMag’s article.

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) — Standing before a massive crowd in a city that once symbolized division, Sen. Barack Obama warned Thursday about the dangers of allowing new walls to come between the United States and its allies.

To view the interactive panorama published by panoramas.dk’s webmaster Hans Nyberg click here.

Built to host 1972 Olympic Games, the Olympia Park was designed with some principles on mind: the Park had to represent either a green option or a positive attitude toward technology. The elements found perfect integration in Günter Behnisch and Günter Grzimek’s masterplans and should have furtherly blended into the positive attitude of the games.

In VRMag’s article you can see the incredible panorama and learn more about the artist: Willy Kaemena.

Adventurous as ever, the new VRMAG issue takes you from Swedish deepest mines by Jonas Carlson, to the steepest walls of Pyrenées – by extreme photographer Juan – , passing through exciting places such as Polynesia atolls; some of New York lesser known places – courtesy of Sam Rohn – and German street artists’ walhalla, “bubblefied” by Virtugraf MIchael Hundrieser and Rio Fashion Week, where the beauty of top model Gisele Bünchen was frozen into Ayrton and Andréa Camargo panos.

Olympic Games are approaching and – for that reason – we invite you to the discovery of Beijing by Tamas Varga and to previous Olympic Villages by our unfatigable train traveller Willy Kaemena, meanwhile exploring PanAmerican Games by Ayrton and Andréa Camargo and UEFA EURO 2008, shot by Werner Weber.

Follow Dirk Kik in his search for megaliths, and Zbooy in his dwelling in the military cemeteries of Cracow. Otherwise, turn Vrmag’s pages to find yourself in Scotland where – in the panos taken by Bill Ward and Will Pearson – you’ll have the chance to admire the tributes to Tommy Burns, the Falkirk Wheel and Cullen Pet Cemetery.

Bubbles are becoming everyday more important in the world of design: to understand it, just jump to the articles about the curious Panobrella and the Panolampe, but do not forget to discover the plusses of a Multimedia Postcard too.

Oxygen plays an important role in the mechanisms of our memory, after having read about it, you could be tempted to try solving one of the several platonic solid enigmas, frozen in Vladimir Popov’s panoramic images. Dwell carefully from a place to another, since Marco Luethi shows you the dangers of falling cameras.

With PangeaVR panoramic images can finally be seen on every iPhone G3. We invite you to the discovery of the application and, for the industry side, we advise you to read about World’s Panoramic Stock. John Houghton teaches to beginners the secrets of stitching with PTGui and Andrew Magill shows anybody how it is possible to paint in 360° with his Orientation aware camera.

In the guest artist you will find the same outstanding photographers you met in issue 30: the duo Wright & George, Dennis Martin, Will Pearson and Timothée Eisenegger. We thought that they did not receive enough attention in the last number of VRMAG, because of its Mach 5…speed.

You’ll find this and much more in VRMAG issue 31: as always – from A to Z we covered the world: let be tempted and chose from the menu where you want to spend the holidays, by exploring them from your…sofa first.

You’re just a click away from enjoying the new VRMAG issue!

Your VRMag team

Brian Greenstone of Pangeasoft created PangeaVR which is a FREE iPhone application that you can download on the App Store for interactively viewing 360º VR panoramas. You use the touch interface on the iPhone to pan around the panorama, and to zoom in and out.

For more information please click here.

Dalileis writes:

“Just wanted to give you tips and point you in the direction of this
multipurpose timesaver:

browsershots.org

Remember the address, because if you are a VR photographer who wants
to know how your beautiful VRs look on different OS platforms and
various versions of any imaginable browser available then you will be
using this one quite often. I do and I think it´s worth its kilobytes
in gold.”

Ever wondered what the inside of a Formula One car looks like? The Dutch artist and car obsessive Paul Veroude did. So he dismantled one. Then British photographer David Spencer came along and shot a fullscreen panorama of it, below.

The Honda Racing F1 car is made up of 3,200 individual parts. Housed in a large glass room and spread over an area approximately four times the footprint of the car when whole, the deconstructed car was viewable to only a handful of people at a time and allowed race fans to get closer than ever before to the engineering secrets behind the state-of-the-art technology.

Veroude’s magical exhibit was the result of painstaking effort and an incredible attention to detail. In his ‘exploded technical diagram’ come to life, each of the 3200 components of the Formula 1 car is painstakingly taken apart and then suspended from wires, right down to the smallest screw.

In VRMag’s article you can see the incredible panorama and learn more about the artists.

Amsterdam: Beautiful, hip, historical, laid back, liberal. With its cobbled streets, tree-lined canals and old houses, Amsterdam looks like a quintessential Dutch village but feels like a cultural metropolis.

And it should. Boasting many topnotch museums – the Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank Museum, Van Gogh Museum, just to name a few – juxtaposed with brown cafes and prostitutes adorning windows in the red light district, Amsterdam’s mix of high and low-brow culture is hard to find anywhere else.

The French capital is the right place to impress your sweety.

Overuse the magic formula “I love you”, and – at time zero – you’ll notice that it has…lost any meaning for the counterpart. So said, if you’re looking for a new way to..revamp this old concept, it’s time to look somewhere else.
The right address? Paris, of course! So, be ready to pack your luggages to go there, because the atmosphere of the Ville Lumière is the right one to turn your partner…head over heels.

VRMag takes you to a virtual discovery through interactive panoramas of the most beautiful places in Paris, and suggests some very special ways to say I love you to your dearest.

Home Arena. Lander University, Greenwood. Sen. Barack Obama speaks to the crowd on the theme “Fired up, ready to go”, a phrase coined by Greenwood city councilwoman Edith Childs; raising approval by far.
Crowds where Sen. Obama appeared were enthusiastic. This is the first panorama I shot from within the buffer at a campaign appearance.

Clinton delivered her speeches in rallies which are, in contrast with the boisterous ones held by Obama, usually delivered to a packed house. The senator from NY, former first lady, held rallies at the Younts Conference center, two days before the Democratic primary, to display her program and to answer questions from the audience.

Rarely has been a campaign as full of surprises as the one that’s taking place in the US lately…Once upon a time there was a candidate, whose nomination seemed to be written into the stars, with the consequence that not only the Democratic party, but even the US would have chosen Hillary as president. It doesn’t seem so true now: with a giant’s leap forward of 20%, Barack Obama seems to have his says on the issue too. Meanwhile, the fight within the democratic party for the endorsement of the candidate, has morphed into a circus, with astonishing events on a (almost) day to day basis. That said, we have our surprises for our readers too…

Read in VRMag’s article about Gary O’Brien shooting panoramas of presidential candidates and view interactive panoramas of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

If the first gathering took place on August 11th 1894, Cowal Gathering soon became a world famous institution, where Highland music, tradition and dance mingle, to offer a performance which is breathtaking. No wonder then, that it attracts more than 3500 competitors, coming from all around the world, which usually share a common root: they have Scottish blood running into their veins…
Well, now your turn has come to be enchanted by the Scottish atmospheres…

Now, when we at VRMag decided to publish Bill Ward’s panoramic images, we even held a short interview, by which the artist explains why he chose this project, his emotions, and the technical difficulties related to the shootings.

Remy spills the beans and gives us its recipes…

Rats in the kitchen do not mean a mess by default. Just ask Linguini who saw, within the walls of Gusteau’s restaurant, Remy giving life to one of the most outstanding parlsley soups that the critics ever ate. It’s exactly thanks to this soup that Remy and Linguini meet and it’s exactly thanks to this soup that their friendship begins. Within these kitchen’s walls they will have the chance to create real chef d’oeuvres (and Pixar’s team actually cooked them in order to reproduce everything in the cartoon!) while – in the manager’s office – Skinner is trying to use a well known brand in order to sell…disgusting microwave dishes.

In VRMag’s article you can view the interactive panoramas of the kitchen and get a great recipe.

Ron Pepper shot this amazing aerial panorama in Miami:

“While every picture is automatically an image of the past, this commission was about photographing the future. The idea was to showcase the future view from the penthouse of a condominium that would be built in sunny Miami Florida. So I had the opportunity to capture 360 degree views of a non-existent building while hanging off the side of a steady dual engine helicopter at 800 feet”.

Read more about and view the panorama in VRMag’s article.

Ian Kerr shot a panorama inside the cockpit of an Avro Vulcan B.2 XL360 at the Midland Air Museum in Coventry, England. It was once England’s Detroit, with numerous manufacturers building their marques in the vicinity; Jaguar, Rover, Triumph, Chrysler, Peugeot, Alvis, Daimler, Hillman, Rootes, Humber, Morris, Maudslay, Armstrong Siddeley, Standard, Lea Francis, Calcott, White & Poppe and so on and so on. Sadly all the major players have removed their manufacturing from the city. During WWII Coventry also produced military aircraft.

“The access I was granted is available to any visitor to this museum; perhaps it is unique in that everyone is encouraged to take the guided tour up the steel ladder into the aircraft, one and all is given the privilege of a hands-on look inside this and other aircraft; in fact I had to compete for space with a stream of patient visitors. Midland Air Museum is an interactive museum expertly run by dedicated enthusiasts – not to be missed”.

Read on VRMag the whole story of this shooting and experience the interactive panorama.

The national historical park of Kalaupapa – which can only be visited by mule – preserves a leper colony, which was constituted back in 1866 and used until 1969 to isolate people suffering from the Hansen’s disease. Even though today the sicks aren’t forcibly relocated there, some still live in the place, where Father Damien established in 1866, in order to help them. If the disease attracted worldwide attention, it’s thanks to this charismatic and compassionate caregiver, who transformed a place to die in a place where hope could still burn in the hearts of the people.

Yes, the island is definitely inspiring, inviting and friendly; rich of unforgettable beaches and smiling people, who will be able to make you feel at home.
And, as they say: Aloha kākou.
In VRMag’s article you can view many panoramas and discover more about father Demien and the highest sea cliffs in the world.

This shot by Russ Addie of Zoomhome.com was done in two different locations. The first was shot at the Wood Brothers Race Shop in Harrisburg North Carolina. Over the past 58 years, this team ran some of the most successful drivers in the history of NASCAR.

Read more about and view the interactive panorama in VRMag’s article.

Just got very interesting info about an upcoming project from Eric:

“Just a heads up about a crazy project we are soon to do. We at xRez are
prepping to do a major shoot of Yosemite valley, using 15 Gigapans, 3
Rodeons, 2 PixOrbs, and a custom Microsoft rig all shooting gigapixel images
simultaneously, ultimately rendering out of a 3d app containing all 20
gigapixel panos mapped to a 1M DEM w/ a virtual slit-scan camera. Gerard
Maynard, Joergen Geerds, and many other great pano photographers are joining
in to make what could become a record-setting image.”

You can view the project here.
Eric Hanson, xRez Studio

Digital Domain was the lead visual effects house on Speed Racer. In the following interview with Kim Libreri, DG’s master of technology you will discover more about his long term collaboration with John Gaeta, the conception and development of the techniques and tools required to create Speed Racer as well as the history of pan and tile panorama techniques since Mission Impossible.

This article is part of VRMag’s Speed Racer coverage.

Annual charity event held in the historic City Hall of Vienna, Lifeball was staged the first time in 1993. A modern and glamorous remake of the Viennese ball tradition, Lifeball celebrates the diversity in the world, meanwhile raising funds, with the help of the several personalities who never miss it.

Sharon Stone, Sir Elton John, Kylie Minogue, Catherine Deneuve, Kelly Ozbourne, Eric Papilaya, Dirk Mach, Liza Minnelli, Kelis, Dita von Teese, Heidi Klum, Dennis Rodman, Naomi Campbell, No Angel, Randy Crawford and several others have supported and still support the event, promoting action against the discrimination against those affected by HIV and AIDS, in a charity event which is the largest of its kind in Europe.

Within the walls of the Vienna City Hall then, are allowed only 4′000 other people (the exclusive holders of the Life Ball tickets) and they enter into a celebration of life which is opulent, sparkling and lively, but even features thoughtful moments, when international partners of Life Ball raise their voice against AIDS.

Stefan Kuzmanov of Vollwertmedia will guide you through immersive virtual panoramas to the event, sharing his emotions here.

Meanwhile explaining his past and current projects, Timothée Eisenegger talks about the potential hidden within VRs.

Rationality and emotion blended together are the ingredients which compose any shot taken by Timothée. Not only he’s always looking for the perfect spot from which a VR could be taken. He’s even looking for new ways to use the technology, in what he has identified as a democratization process, in the adaptation of VR to yet unexplored fields…

While reading this interview, enjoy the panoramic images taken in several places: Savour the Venetian atmosphere; relax on a deserted beach and let yourself be thrilled by Timothée’s abilities…

Tim is guest artist in the latest issue of VRMag.

During a routine visit to his dentist, John had a panoramic X-ray for the first time. Watching the X-ray machine rotating about his head, John’s first thought was: “I bet I can make this into a cool QuickTime VR!” It wasn’t too hard to convince his dentist, Dr. Joe Lever, to give him a copy of the film.

After scanning it into his computer and doing some minor retouching, John thinks he came up with a unique viewpoint, where it seems you are inside his mouth, looking outwards with X-ray vision.

Click here to sit on his tongue and watch his teeth.