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http://www.thecoronabeach.com/

For someone that is looking for a bike trainer but can`t stand the thought of the boredom that entails, this maybe the best thing to keep you interested. Imagine one day cycling through New York, next day Moscow and then the UK countryside all without leaving the house and all without the possibility of getting hit by a truck.

Linking Google Streetview to a bike is the future I tell ya (all for about $500) – and when, one day, Google decides to implicate the video panoramas that we all know they have – this will be better than actually going on cycling holidays (if there is such a thing which I’m sure there is – well I notice an asparagus cooking holiday the other day so I`m sure there is a niche for cyclists — maybe even a niche for pink wearing cyclists from West Ham)

OK – it’s more of a great use of the API but using the word Hack gives more steet(view) cred – So they called it a hack.

Navigate round certain parts of London using Streetview and stumble across areas where the band are hanging out and streaming their new album ‘In This Light And On This Evening’

Your Name:
Adrian Fichte

Company website:
www.36zero.de

What is the subject of the tour?
City Panorama

How Many people worked on this tour?
1-5

What photographic Equipment did you use?
Canon Eos 40D Peleng and a Fisheye

What Software did you find most useful?
Gimp,Hugin and Pano2VR

One of the oldest towns in Germany, Augsburg has been formed by Romans, financiers, traders and medieval workmen. It was set up by the stepchildren of Roman emperor Augustus over 2k years back, and in the Middle Ages it became an industrial power-house. Europe’s most influential merchant families, the Fuggers and the Welsers, lent cash to kings and states from Augsburg. Reminders of this golden age can be seen in the Renaissance and baroque faades of the palaces and patrician homes dotted around the town.

Bavaria’s third-largest town has a chilled angle and going the leafy streets is a real pleasure. An simple short trip from Munich, it is a good accommodation option during Oktoberfest and an ideal base for exploring the Romantic Road.

Your Name:
Patrick Cheatham

Company website:
http://cheathamlane.net

What is the subject of the tour?
Kunsthalle Bremen: Museum Virtual Tour / Virtueller Rundgang

How Many people worked on this tour?
1-5

What photographic Equipment did you use?
Christian Gröger shoots with the Panoscan MkIII.

What Software did you find most useful?
PanoPrep (for the Panoscan photography);

Flash; Flex Builder/SDK; Photoshop; Illustrator; BBEdit & TextWrangler (BBEdit’s GREP based search-and-replace rocks); Coda and Transmit. Other various things as needed, including A Better Finder Rename. Skype (video/voice/text chat amongst folks scattered about the globe).

Not software strictly speaking, but the iPhone came in handy too.

More information:
Christian Gröger of Think QuickTime photographed the Kunsthalle Bremen, in
preparation for their closing and remodel. The museum wanted to be able to not
only document the site before it was torn down, but also provide a way for
people to visit virtually while the Kunsthalle was being rebuilt.

Once done with the 30 or so panoramas, Christian provided me with the basic
design & functionality concepts for the tour; after that we (myself and newest
CheathamLane colleague Zephyr Renner) architected, scripted and produced all the
interactivity for the virtual tour.

The tour uses PanoSalado as its base (naturally ). It includes hundreds of
hotspots for the artworks, many of which link to additional information. There
are videos, audio downloads, “Zoomify” display of artworks, floorplans and
fullscreen layouts & more!

It was a lot of fun to work on, and it grew (like many projects) into more than
expected as we went along. It’s nice to see a virtual tour as comprehensive as
this (and AFAIK it’s the largest one yet using PanoSalado).

The Kunsthalle Bremen’s site:
http://www.kunsthalle-bremen.de/front_content.php?idcat=106

Think QuickTime’s site (w/info and link to press release):
http://www.think-quicktime.com/de/index.php

Enjoy!

Patrick

Open Source Flash panorama viewer:
http://panosalado.com

Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth that provides 360 horizontal and 290 vertical wide ranging perspectives from a row of positions along the street for many streets in the world, from a height of about 2.5 metres.

Coverage is shown by dragging a “pegman” icon from its position, onto a map of any scale.

occasionally Google Trikes ( tricycles ) are used.[4] On each of these automobiles ( and tricycles ) there are 9 directional cameras for the 360 perspectives, GPS units for positioning, 3 laser range scanners, made by SICK, for the measuring of at least fifty meters 180 in the front of the auto.

On the vehicles there also are 3G / GSM / Wi-Fi antennas for scanning 3G / GSM and Wi-Fi hotspots.[5] Latterly , ‘high quality’ pictures ( better quality than the 1st ) are based on open-source hardware cameras from Elphel. These cameras are also utilized by Google book search.[6].

Where available, street view photographs appear after zooming in outside the highest zooming level in maps and satellite images, and also by dragging a “pegman” icon onto a location on a map.

Using the keyboard or mouse the horizontal and vertical viewing direction and the zoom level can be selected. At junctions and crossings of camera automobile routes, more arrows are shown. On Nov twenty-one, 2008, Street View was added to the Maps application installed on the Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch. On December ten, 2008, Street View was added to the Maps application for S60 third Edition.

Street View has also been added to the Windows Mobile and BlackBerry versions of Google Maps. All versions of Google Maps for Android feature Street View, and the digital compass can be employed to look around the locations.

These panoramas were created by Oleg Gaponyuk and Andrei Zubets in Quicktime in 2008. Yours truly decided to convert to Flash (Krpano) as a personal project.

We have all seen 3d stuff before – but maybe not this good in Flash…?

Shows where are heading as far as online 3d projections and interactivity maybe.

At first it may look like a generated Virtual tour – but try using the e s f x d keys!!

Enjoy

Your Name:
Andrei Zdetovetchi

Company website:
http://www.csvd.ro/

What is the subject of the tour?
Hotel Vega Virtual Tour

How Many people worked on this tour?
Just Me!

What photographic Equipment did you use?
Canon 450D, NN3, Peleng 8mm.

What Software did you find most useful?
Flash Panorama Player, PTGui

More information:
Vega is a unique place, not only because of its emplacement and the offered services, but also because of its historical load, kept in all the walls,murmuring, slowly, a fascinating story from the past.

The hotel has been used many years ago as the place of one of the reference movies of Romanian cinematography : “Nea Marin Miliardar”. The stars of the golden ages have been here, the rooms of the hotel being used by great artists of old times.

After a long process of renovation and modernization, Hotel Vega in Mamaia has been reopened in the summer of the year 2008, being classified as a 5 stars Hotel. The principles of Feng Shui harmony governs the hotel in a discreet way.

This is the virtual tour of the hotel, adapted to work online, since it was designed as an offline application. The tour has 27 panoramas, shot in the summer of 2008. The interface was designed to match the hotel’s website – http://www.hotelvega.ro/

Thanks to Tom Mills of London Virtual tours to point me in the direction of this cool presentation. The lighting and production is excellent and blue/green screen work is very well implemented.