Introduction

CubicNavigator is a browser for VR panoramas - special types of movable images which show what a location looks like all around the observer.

The program can retrieve and display several types of popular panorama formats and display them using hardware accelerated OpenGL, either in the main window or have them fill the screen for a more complete experience.

The way CubicNavigator works is this: it goes to the location you supply, which can be either a web address or a local file, and attempts to extract VR data. If it finds a panorama, CubicNavigator will display it in its OpenGL-based "VR view," a high performance rendering mode which uses the hardware acceleration of modern graphics cards to present a smooth and fluid panorama.

If it can't find anything it understands, or you choose to change views, CubicNavigator falls back to displaying the location in its "Web Page view," which is similar to what you would see if you went to the location using Safari, where QuickTime VR movies are displayed using the QuickTime Plugin, PTViewer applets are run with Java, etc.

Thus you get the best of both worlds: a high performance OpenGL based panorama viewer for fluid fullscreen use, and web page viewing with embedded QuickTime plugin or Java based applets for seeing the panorama in amongst information provided by its author.

The VR material CubicNavigator understands includes the longest standing and arguably highest quality of the panoramic VR formats - QuickTime VR - but also other popular formats such as PTViewer Java applets, PhotoVista tours, Bamboo applets and the recent Shockwave-based SPi-V viewer, as well as plain JPEG or TIFF images representing equirectangular, cylindrical or cubic panorama projections.

CubicNavigator's uses include:

• as a browser for VR media
• to catalog your QuickTime VR movies or other panoramas for quick viewing
• for rapid previews of recently stitched panoramas (no conversion into QTVR required)
• for slideshows of VR content
• as a high performance substitute for QuickTime Player to display QTVR movies fluidly and in fullscreen
• to view spectacular panoramas on the internet
• to record self-playing tours for continuous playback (perhaps in a real estate office)
• for presentations, where VRs can be shown fullscreen with large labels and giant cursors

Take a QuickStart tour or click a chapter heading on the left to learn more about a specific area of CubicNavigator.

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