Portland Macintosh Users Group

QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) allows pictures to be interactive. There are two different styles. One style is where it seems you are pivoting around for a 360° panorama. You can look from side to side, up and down, and zoom in or out of the picture. The other style lets you rotate or ?walk around? the object. You can view it from all angles and zoom in and out. This article will tell you how to make your own QTVR object movies.

A QTVR object movie gives much more information than a still picture from one viewpoint. The viewer can turn the object around and see all of the sides; this adds depth to the item. The view is no longer flat, and all 3 dimensions are visible. A digital camera web site, www.steves-digicams.com, will give a virtual tour of the camera using QTVR when they give a review of a particular camera. You can see where all the buttons, doors, ports, and knobs are located. It’s almost like having it in The four basic steps to success are: plan what you are going to do; take the pictures; make your still pictures into a movie; convert the movie to QTVR. I use iPhoto, iMovie, and QTVR Edit Object.

Planning

The questions to consider first of pictures per row makes for a smooth movie but 20 works fine, too. If you only have 20 pictures per rotation but you do vertical rotation also, you will end up with 400 pictures. Decide on some sort of naming convention so you know what row and column each shot belongs in.

Picture Taking Hints

Use light, neutral colored backgrounds to reduce the harshness of the shadows. The background will also get rid of distractions behind the object. Mount the camera on a tripod.

To read the complete instructions on creating this object, see the September 2004 issue of Mouse Tracks.