Warning About Single-Image QTVR Export in Bryce 4

If you've been looking carefully at the features and tools in Bryce 4, you may have discovered a way to export a single panoramic image which can be converted into a QuickTimeVR movie. In fact, Bryce 4 even allows you to export a scene as a QTVR movie. I will not give the details here, because I do not want you to use this feature for Assignment 5.

Here's why: If you look at the panorama above you'll notice severe distortion around the edges of the image, as if the picture was shot with a fisheye lens. Shooting multiple images in rotation negates this distortion because it includes redundant information (overlap) in the mosaic of shots.

The single-image feature is prohibited for Assignment 5. Could you use it for Assignment 6 or your final project? Yes, under at least one of the following conditions:

1. You use the time saved through the single-image process to produce more panorama movies than the minimum required by the assignment; OR:
   
   
2. You find a way to produce a single-image panorama without the visual distortion evident in the example above.

I'm no photographic expert, but I have tried the following steps to eliminate the distortion:

1. Reduce the camera's field of view from 100% down to 50%. No change whatsoever in the panoramic image. (I didn't try a value greater than 100%, if that's even possible.)
   
   
2. Change aspect ratio to Default (4x3, or 640x480). No improvement.
   
   
3. Change aspect ratio to the 13x4 setting specified for QuickTimeVR. This ameliorates the problem somewhat, especially when the view is zoomed most of the way in. If you're going to use single-image sources, use this setting. Consider rendering at very high quality in order to preserve image fidelity under magnification.

Or you could just live with the dippy fisheye effect... but not for Assignment 5, please.