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Multinode Tours and Maps
Going from node to node using hotspots
Going from node to node using the QuickAccess buttons
Although many of the panoramas that are on the internet are single nodes usually made for their spectacular photographic interest, some VR tours have more than one node, that is, other panoramas photographed close by the first one.
These tours offer a more complete experience by letting you go to different locations in the same general area.
Going from node to node using hotspots
The other nodes are usually accessed through "hotspots," regions on the panorama which, when clicked, link to another node. Assuming you have the "Sample Tour" open, move the mouse over the area around the pavillion. The mouse cursor will change from a dragging symbol to the pointing hand. Now click.
The node that the hotspot links to will be opened and displayed. You can then start panning around this new node.
If you turn around approximately 180°, you can see where you came from, which is also covered by a hotspot. If you clicked this hotspot, you would return there.
Sometimes, finding hotspots can be a tricky business, particularly if a VR tour's author has decided to be pedantic and put them only over the exact area that you would physically pass through in real life, for example, a small door on a distant building.
To help you locate hotspots, you can make them visible. To do this, click the [H] button at the bottom of the viewer window.
The hotspot areas will show as transparent green shapes superimposed over the panorama. (The color can be changed in the Preferences.)
You can still move the panorama with the hotspots visible. To restore the image to its pristine state, click the [H] button again (or use the keyboard shortcut key "h").
Often multinode tours with hotspots also have labels indicating where a hotspot leads to. The [L] button next to the [H] hotspots button toggles these labels on and off.
Labels float above the approximate center of their associated hotspots as you move the panorama. The label text's size and color can be changed in the Preferences.
Going from node to node using the QuickAccess buttons
For tours that have several nodes, you can jump from node to node using the buttons that appear underneath the location bar at the top of the viewer window. These buttons are termed "QuickAccess" buttons.
Clicking one of the numbered buttons jumps straight to that node (the order depends on how the author created the tour, but usually isn't particularly important).
The QuickAccess buttons are also useful when the nodes you are viewing aren't actually linked in a tour yet. For example, they may be freshly stitched, raw panoramic images. CubicNavigator allows these to be dropped into the application all at once and shown as if they were a multinode tour.
The QuickAccess buttons jump directly from node to node, allowing these raw panoramas to be previewed very quickly without having to author any sort of multinode tour.
As there might be hundreds of these raw panoramas at once, there can be situtations where there are not enough QuickAccess buttons to show them all. In these cases, a popup menu for the missing nodes is available to the right of the row of buttons.
(You can also resize the window to make more QuickAccess node buttons visible.)
Some multinode tours contain maps. When a tour displayed in the VR View contains a readable map, an [M] button appears at the bottom of the window near the hotspots [H] button.
(Note: Many VR tours don't contain maps, and even if they do, they may not show in the VR View of CubicNavigator. The way maps are included in the various types of VR formats tends to be a very author specific thing. There is no standard format in QuickTime VR for storing a map and often the map is simply included in an HTML page alongside the embedded movie, so to see it you will need to be in the Web View mode. At this stage, CubicNavigator can read maps embedded in VR tours created by CubicConnector and PTViewer.)
The "Sample Tour" QuickTime VR movie does contain a map so click the [M] button to have it appear.
When shown, maps are rendered as 3D objects, with green balls indicating nodes in the tour, and a red ball for where you currently are. The 3D map can be turned in any direction, just like a paper map. To do this, drag over the map with the mouse. Instead of the panorama moving, the map will move. To change nodes directly from the map, click one of the green balls.
Where the information is available, the direction you are facing will be indicated on the map by a "cone" which widens out according to your current orientation.
(If you turn the map off by clicking [M] (or pressing ESC on the keyboard), move the panorama to a different orientation, then re-show the map, the cone will face a new direction.)
You can also show the map separately from the panorama, and have the flat, 2D map images shown instead of a 3D object. In the View menu there is a "Map Panel" command which will show a floating panel that can be moved to the side of the main viewer window.
This completes multinode tours and maps. The next chapter describes how to manipulate Bookmarks.
Watch Movie of Tutorial Being Performed [1:43]