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QuickTime VR (Virtual Reality) is a technology from Apple that lets you control a QuickTime movie. It's not a normal QuickTime movie, but a panoramic picture that you look around in. You can turn, look up and down, and zoom in and out. The term virtual reality is a little deceiving because of what people expect from it. Most virtual reality computers have special gloves and headsets you wear so that you can move your head and your view changes. QuickTime VR does not do this. You cannot walk around like in those virtual reality computers.

To get a 360 degree image, you have to take a lot of photos around one point and digitize them, take a picture using a panoramic camera, or use a program like KPT Bryce to create a computer generated image. With the photos, you need a program to "stitch" the images into one. When photos are stitched, they are combined in overlapping areas so that there is no visible break between pictures. Apple sells this with their entire QuickTime VR kit for about $500. If you're using a computer generated image or panoramic camera, there is a program for free that will create a single movie using that image.

The panoramic image is very distorted. When a series of photographs is stitched together, horizontal lines appear to move back into the picture. If you are using a computer generated image, you can specify how you want the picture to be rendered. In KPT Bryce, for example, you can render in a panoramic view. This is rendered with distortion in the picture, but looks fine when used as a panorama. The QuickTime VR viewer, available for free off the Internet, is needed to make the picture look normal. The viewer takes this image and "flattens" it so it looks like a normal picture.

Besides a scene to look around in, there can also be objects to move around and look at from any angle. These can be photographs taken with a special stand, available from Apple, or computer generated images. The latter being much easier because of the amount of pictures needed to create an object. You have to have a picture of the object from every angle. This requires a lot of pictures. A digital camera would cut down on costs if you need to photograph a real object.

In a panorama, there can be hot spots that, when clicked upon, will cause something to happen. This could be another panorama, a text box, a still photo, a sound clip, a QuickTime movie or a QuickTime VR object. This is how you move from scene to scene, known as nodes. You can click on a doorway and it opens the panorama for the next room. You could then click on a sculpture and be able to pick it up and hold it. You could click on a picture of a famous person and have a sound clip of a famous quote play.

This is where the practical uses come in. You could, for instance, walk around museums half way around the world using QuickTime VR. You could pick up sculptures to get a better look at them. Although not too practical, you could walk on an alien landscape and meet new life forms. Anything is possible. The problem is that you have to have a team of people to create a large world to move in. One panorama you could do by yourself. As long as you don't want any hot spots, you can do it for free.

QuickTime VR is a nice technology, but not as impressive as it sounds. I would definitely get the software for it, it's free off the Internet, because it is fun to try out once in awhile. I don't think it will revolutionize virtual reality, but it does have its uses. The Web site for QuickTime VR is http://quicktimevr.apple.com. I would suggest looking at this site for its samples and software. QuickTime VR is definitely fun, but not too useful.

(QuickTime VR and logo's are ® Apple Computers)

Brian Koponen (briankop@mail.idt.net)

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