I. Edit Panorama Graphics

The following procedure is optional, not required. You may wish to change the appearance of your panorama movie either by editing out errors and artifacts or by adding images not in your original photography. The QTVR part of this procedure is fairly easy--though the image manipulation in Photoshop could be more difficult.

1. When you built your panorama, QTVR Authoring Studio generated a .pict file consisting of a long, continuous image strip. You can open that file in Adobe Photoshop or some other image editing program that accepts the PICT file format. Before you make any changes, make a copy of your .pict file and give the copy a new name. Never make changes in an essential file.

2. Open the working copy in Photoshop. Your image will appear in portrait (vertical) orientation, probably reduced to 8.33%. Using the Rotate Canvas command from the Image menu, switch to landscape (horizontal) orientation. You may also want to scale up to 100%.

3. Make any changes you like. If you have artifacts (gaps around the edges of your image), consider using the Rubber Stamp Tool to "clone" bits of the surrounding image as filler.

4. Photoshop may refuse to save your .pict file in landscape orientation. If this happens, rotate back into portrait mode and save that way.

5. Open QTVR Authoring Studio (this may mean moving from a Graphics Lab machine, where Photoshop is available, to one of the machines in the Hypermedia Room). Under the New menu, select Panorama Maker (not Stitcher). Give this panorama a unique name--don't use the name you used for your original panorama.

6. When the window opens, drag your .pict file into it. Wait a few seconds for the icon to appear. Click on the Make Panorama button. The rest is automatic. You'll end up with the familiar quartet of files, including a new .pano file that contains your new VR movie. This movie should have your Photoshop edits.

This part is required. You can use QTVR Authoring Studio to map regions of your VR movie as hot spots or link cues. When the movie is included in a Web page (next week's task), these hot spots will work much the same as linked areas in an imagemap: the cursor will change appearance and a mouseclick will cause some URL to be loaded--into an adjacent frame for our purposes. As before, the chapter you've been given from the QTVR manual is for ready reference. The document you're reading now is a streamlined guide.

1. Write a list of all the areas in your panorama that you wish to make into hot spots. Remember that each of these areas will call up a Web page. Give each item on your list a simple, one-word name (for instance, "myDesk").

2. Launch QTVR Authoring Studio on Jughead, Olive Oyl, or Hank. Under the New menu, select Scene Maker. Save this scene to some identifiable directory, preferably on the local hard drive.

3. Locate the .pano file that represents the final version of your panorama and drag that file into the Scene Maker window. Almost immediately you will see an icon representing your pano. Position this icon in the middle of the window.

4. In the middle of the Scene Maker window, find the words Create Nodes: and the five icons to the right of these words. Put your cursor over the icon that looks like an image of the Earth. A yellow flag labeled URL should appear. This is the URL hot spot tool. Click on this tool. The button should appear "depressed."

5. Move your cursor into the main window somewhere near the icon that represents your panorama. Click your mouse button once. A new node called untitled will appear.

6. Click on the word "untitled" and rename this node just as you would rename an item on the Mac desktop. Give the node the first name on your list of hot spots.

7. Repeat steps 4-6 until you have created a URL node for each of the hot spots on your list. Arrange the node icons in a circle or ellipse around the icon that represents your panorama.

8. Find the words Set Links: in the Scene Maker window. Find the icon immediately to the right of these words (it shows a single arrow pointing down and to the left). This is the one-way link tool. Don't click on this icon yet.

9. In the main Scene Maker window, click once on the icon that represents your panorama. Then click on the one-way link tool. Both the icon and the tool button should be highlighted. Now move your cursor back to your pano icon and drag from that icon to any one of the surrounding URL node icons. Drag, don't click. If you release the mouse button the link tool will de-activate. Release the mouse button only when you are in the center of the node icon. A line with an arrowhead should appear, indicating a link. This is a good time to save your work.

10. Repeat Step 9 for all the node icons in the Scene Maker window.

11. Go to the Scene menu and select Edit Hot Spots. This will open two overlapping windows. The larger window displays your panorama. The smaller, labeled Hot Spot Editor, shows a list of all the URL nodes that can be linked through hot spots. This list should contain all the items that were on your list in Step 1.

12. You can't fly around your pano in the hot spot editor, but you can use the horizontal and vertical scroll bars to move to a particular point. Locate the point that corresponds to your first planned hot spot. In the Editor window, click once on the appropriate node in the list. Think of the nodes in this list as destination Web pages--so if you're working on a link from your desk to the page that discusses your desk, select the node named "myDesk."

13. Still in the Editor window, find the row of icons at the top. The pointer icon should currently be highlighted. Next to it is a hand icon, and next to that is a solid red rectangle icon. Click on this icon.

14. Move back into the panorama window. Your cursor should now be a crossbar. Drag over the region of the pano image to define a rectangular hot spot, then release the cursor. You should see a translucent rectangle in some color that corresponds to the color patch shown in the Editor window next to your URL node. Don't worry too much about accuracy or overlaps in your selection. If you select the wrong spot, use the Undo command from the Edit menu and try again. When you're happy with the results, save your work.

15. Repeat Steps 13-14 for each link listed in the Editor window. Note that you may create more than one hot spot for any link. If you're feeling brave you might experiment with the two other solid-color icons to the right of the rectangular hot spot tool. The first of these creates oval hot spots. The second lets you define a hot spot as an irregular polygon--but this one needs careful handling.

16. When you've created at least one hot spot for every node on the list, click the close box (upper lefthand corner) on the panorama window. This shuts down the hot spot editor.

17. Click the button at the upper right corner of the Scene Maker window labeled Make Scene. A number of automatic steps will ensue. These should be complete in a few seconds.

18. You'll see your panorama again (this time technically a scene) in a live VR window. Fly through it and see if your cursor changes as you move over each designated hot spot. Go back into the Hot Spot Editor to correct any spots that did not come out.

19. The scene maker creates a general file (no extension), a .hot file containing hot spot data, and a .scene file. Save all these to your Zip disk. The .scene file replaces your original .pano file as the working version of your project (but don't discard the .pano file).

This completes Stage 3 of the project. Next week, in Stage 4, you'll fill in URLs for your hot spots and coordinate the QTVR scene/movie with a set of Web pages.