CubicNavigator - Tutorial

Panoramic VR refers to an image on a computer screen that moves as the user moves their mouse to show a realistic view of the area originally photographed. This view is usually 360° around and a variable amount up and down.

The most generally well known form of panoramic VR is QuickTime VR, which was introduced in 1995 with a software kit which allowed photographs to be joined in a seamless fashion to create a continuous panoramic image. The QuickTime VR playback software then manipulated this image in real-time to show a realistic view of the area originally photographed, with additional features such as hotspots linking the locations.

Are QuickTime VR panoramas like the ones that show what the latest iMac looks like?

Sort of, but they're separate areas of the QuickTime VR technology. The iMac is shown using an "Object VR" which shows what something looks like from the outside looking in. By contrast, "Panoramic VR" shows a location from the inside looking out.

Where can I see some samples of panoramic VR?

How are panoramas made?

Usually by taking a number of photographs through a wide-angle lens and using stitching software which joins them together to create a continuous seamless image. Panoramas can also be created using a special one-shot camera which records an entire scene at once.

I'd like to start making my own VR panoramas, where do I begin?

Panorama stitching programs such as PTMac and Realviz Stitcher come with guidance on creating VR panoramas.

Hardware solution providers have information on their products:

Organizations such as the International VR Photography Association (IVRPA.org) and others maintain lists of VR creating solutions:

Many web sites exist giving tutorials on VR creation:

Spectacular VR showcase sites such as Panoramas.dk have links to Getting Started information.

http://panoramas.dk/

Online magazines dedicated to VR photography contain extensive reviews and information:

http://vrm.vrway.com/

Mailing lists such as the Quicktime-VR digest and PanoTools discussion group are filled with enthusiastic individuals who can offer guidance and critiques.

It looks time-consuming, where can I hire a VR photographer to do it for me?

Various directory sites exist with links to panoramic photographers in a given area. Some of these are:

And if I want to know more?

Google is your friend. Helpful search terms:

1. Introduction to CubicNavigator

What is CubicNavigator?

A browser for VR panoramas. CubicNavigator can display many popular VR formats using a hardware accelerated OpenGL renderer for fluid, smooth viewing in a window or fullscreen.

Where it is unable to display a VR, or you choose to change the view, CubicNavigator will display a standard web page which instead uses the QuickTime plugin or Java applet to display a panorama. You can toggle these ways of viewing the same VR material.

Why the "Cubic" in CubicNavigator?

Cubic refers to the VR panorama format which represents the view around the observer as six cube faces (four around, one above and one underneath). The cubic format is the one used by the latest versions of QuickTime VR, which is arguably the most popular and highest quality of VR software around.

Can it display other panoramic projections?

Yes. CubicNavigator can also render equirectangular, cylindrical and standard rectilinear panoramas, as well as horizontally or vertically stacked cubic images.

I'm new to this and don't understand what you mean by "projection?"

A projection is simply a means of changing a view from one form to another. For example, if you found a globe of the world, unwrapped the paper strips of the map from its surface and spread them out on the floor, you would have projected a spherical image (from the globe) onto a rectangular image (the floor).

(Of course, when the owner of the globe saw what you had done, you would also learn about another form of projection!)

In a similar way, photographers use panoramas to represent what a real world location looks like on the flat 2D computer screen.

Further information on terms like these can be found in CubicNavigator's Glossary chapter in the Help file.

Isn't this just QuickTime VR? I've seen all this before haven't I?

Sort of. The interesting part of CubicNavigator is that it attempts to emulate the way QuickTime VR works, but in OpenGL rather than through the software rendering used for QuickTime VR. The result is that panoramas can take full advantage of the 3D hardware acceleration present in the graphics cards in most modern computers.

With QuickTime VR's software rendering, you see ripples moving through the image and get frame rates typically much lower than that of your monitor, especially when you take the panoramas fullscreen. With the new approach, OpenGL allows very fluid and smooth panning at frame rates equal to the refresh rate of your monitor.

You probably have some very powerful graphics hardware in your computer, let's use it!

What do I need to run CubicNavigator?

The current version (1.0.4) requires either Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or later, a reasonably recent graphics card such as an ATI Rage 128 Pro (year 2000) or later, with at least 16MB VRAM (32MB+ recommended if your card supports Quartz Extreme). The more VRAM you have, the higher the quality of panoramas you will be able to see.

Is there a Windows version?

Not yet. Currently, the Windows version costs $509 and comes with a free Mac mini. :)

What are the limitations of the trial I've just downloaded?

The trial is fully functional except for: a welcome screen that shows when launched, fullscreen mode shows a watermarked "CubicNavigator in Trial Mode" message, and slideshows exit after one minute.

Otherwise, the app is fully functional. If you like it, you are encouraged to purchase a serial number to register it as the app has taken a considerable amount of effort to develop and maintain.

How much does it cost and where can I buy it from?

CubicNavigator costs $10 and a license/serial number can be purchased from:

http://www.clickheredesign.com/pricelist/

2. Using CubicNavigator

Can I use CubicNavigator to display QuickTime VR movies I have stored on my hard drive?

Yes. The program understands both cylindrical format QuickTime VR movies as well as the newer cubic format. Quicktime VR movies can be opened by dropping them into the viewer window or onto the app icon.

Multinode movies too?

Yes.

What other sorts of panorama formats?

PTViewer Java applets, PhotoVista panoramas and tours, Bamboo Java applets, some ImmerVision G2 beta viewer Java applets, the new Shockwave-based SPi-V format, and raw TIFF or JPEG equirectangular, cylindrical or cubic (including horizontally or vertically stacked multiple cubic formats) panoramic images.

Will this list expand over time?

Yes. As most panorama formats are simply derivations from the fundamental panorama projection types, CubicNavigator can be adapted to work with them once the embedding information is parsed.

Why would I use CubicNavigator to view a panoramic format designed for a web page?

CubicNavigator offers a very high performance OpenGL accelerated renderer that can show fluid fullscreen panoramas with no frame rate lag, that is, as smooth as your monitor's refresh rate. It also brings a smooth and responsive QuickTime VR-style panning motion to panoramas whose native viewers are less pleasant to use.

What else can I use it for?

Browsing VR panoramas on the web or your hard drive, presenting slideshows of VR material, recording self-running tours of VR locations, previewing recently stitched raw panoramic images, presenting VR material to an audience using size boosted cursors and labels, AppleScripting from other applications, etc.

How does recording work?

You start recording and CubicNavigator remembers the moves you make to pan the VR image. These moves can then be saved and played back later as part of a slideshow or kiosk style self-running tour.

How do I start a VR slideshow?

If you've seen iPhoto, you know everything you need. If you haven't, you will in 60 seconds.

Can the slideshows play music while they are panning the VR around?

Of course, what's a slideshow without music!

Is CubicNavigator intended to replace the QuickTime plugin for viewing QuickTime VR movies?

No. The QuickTime plugin allows QTVR movies to be embedded in web pages where they can appear alongside text and images with information and other material. CubicNavigator includes an OpenGL based viewer which shows purely panoramic content, and is intended for showing it in a more "deluxe" way: for smoother viewing, fullscreen, as a slideshow, etc.

Why use CubicNavigator instead of just opening a VR in QuickTime Player?

For using hardware accelerated OpenGL to give smoother VR panning at a high frame rate, for slideshows, cataloging, bookmarking scenic web sites, right-mouse button zooming, fluid fullscreen use, first-person-shooter mode, and so on. Also, CubicNavigator can display VR formats that QuickTime Player can't, such as just-stitched raw equirectangular TIFFs for rapid previews, PTViewer Java content, etc.

You say it can display PTViewer Java tours too, where can I browse to to see?

Try Ben Kreunen's spectacular series of Virtual Victoria tours: http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~bernardk/victoria/virtual/

These are spectacular panoramas, but do not use QuickTime. In the Safari or Firefox browser (or CubicNavigator in web view mode), these tours will display as embedded Java applets. In CubicNavigator's OpenGL-based VR view, they'll take on a whole new dimension.

Can I use CubicNavigator to show fullscreen VR on one monitor and other apps on the other screen?

As of version 1.0.2, yes. The monitor used to display the VR when going into fullscreen or a slideshow is the monitor which has the top left corner of the window on it, that is, where the red close button is.

Clicks over CubicNavigator's "space" will pan the view in fullscreen mode, or exit a slideshow in slideshow mode. Clicks in other app's windows will only affect them, meaning it is possible to surf the web with Safari on one monitor while having a slideshow automatically pan around on the other monitor.

What does the "Display Resolution Indicator" mean?

The Display Resolution Indicator, turned on or off in the Window Preferences, shows at the bottom of the viewer window the resolution of the currently loaded panorama.

The text at the left indicates the type of VR it is - "cubic, equirect, cylinder" - followed by the dimensions. For example, "cubic: 6 x 768 x 768" indicates there are six cube faces, each having a cube face size of 768 pixels.

Following this are 4 colored dots indicating the quality of the display, that is, how much of the source panorama could fit into the assigned VRAM. Four green dots means that the full resolution is being shown. Three green dots indicates that there has been some downscaling, but not too much. Two amber dots indicates fairly heavy downscaling. 1 red dot indicates the display will probably look as though it is being viewed through pebbled glass.

To the right of the colored dots is a number in brackets which indicates how much VRAM is being used to show the panorama. For example, the above cubic displayed in full resolution would take 6 * 768 * 768 * 3 / 1024 / 1024 = (10 MB).

My 30 day trial has expired and I'm not going to buy it. How can I clear the cache to make sure I'm not wasting hard drive space?

If the 30 day trial period has expired, clicking the "Quit" button on the splash screen automatically clears the cache. If the trial period has not yet expired, you can clear the cache by going to Preferences > Caches and clicking the "Clear Caches" button.

I have a new iMac Core Duo which uses an Intel chip, will CubicNavigator run on it?

Yes. As of version 1.1 CubicNavigator is a Universal Binary, built for both PowerPC and Intel based Macs.

How does the Apple Remote work with it?

If you have an infrared equipped Mac, first turn on the Use Apple Remote checkbox in Preferences > Keyboard. You can then use the right/left/up/down buttons to pan around the VR view. The action for the play/pause (center) button on the Remote can be chosen from the popup preference. The default is to toggle in and out of fullscreen mode.

The system-wide volume adjustment tones may also sound when using the up/down buttons on the remote.. To turn these off, you can go to System Preferences > Sound and deselect the checkbox.

3. Troubleshooting

I like to see QuickTime VR previews as they load, but the VR View doesn't show them. How can I see them?

Switch to the "View As Web Page" view before you open the location. The QuickTime Plugin will load the movie in the normal way, showing the preview. When it finishes loading, you can switch to "View As VR" mode to fill the screen with it, etc.

How can I speed up loading, so that I don't see the empty grid for long?

When a node is accessed for the first time, the media has to be retrieved (usually downloaded from the web unless you are opening a local file), then decompressed or extracted from the QTVR file format, then the images have to be resized to a power of 2 for uploading to the texture memory of the graphics card. After this is done, the images are "cached" to your hard drive, which means that the next time the node is accessed, even after quitting and returning later, it will load much faster.

For even faster access within a multinode scene, already loaded nodes are left in memory, meaning the next time they are loaded the images are sent to the video card almost instantaneously. So, if it is important that a presentation shows little or no "wireframe," simply visit each node once and subsequent visits will be much faster.

While I'm panning a node that is being loaded, there is a "judder" as a new part of the image is added. Is anything wrong?

No, this is normal. The pause is from the new texture being initialized and uploaded to the graphics card, and its duration will depend on the speed of the hardware.

Panning the VR view doesn't seem very smooth. What's wrong?

First, try hiding the windows in other applications (command-option-H), as Quartz redraws may be competing for the monitor refresh (see below for an explanation).

Second, it's possible the VR viewer display's OpenGL updates aren't keeping sync with the monitor and frames are being lost. Try going to Preferences > Advanced and changing the OpenGL Display Updates to one of three settings:

Lock Swap Interval To Monitor Refresh Rate, or
Sync to VBL, or
Don't Sync Display

The first choice, Lock Swap Interval To Monitor Refresh Rate forces updates to come after each monitor refresh. The "swap interval" is the time taken between refreshes of OpenGL's buffers onto the display. That is, how often the image in the window is updated. By locking it to the monitor's refresh rate, the buffers are swapped only when the display is ready to show them and avoids, say, showing half of one frame and half the next, a phenomenon often referred to as "tearing."

However, locking the swap interval also requires an update to come at a fixed time rather than when it is ready, and within the system there is competition for this time frame. Quartz itself (Mac OS X's sophisticated window display engine) also times its updates to coincide with the swap interval, part of the reason Mac OS X seems so beautifully smooth when compared to the flickering updates of other Operating Systems. If there is a lot of system activity outside the window, frames can be lost in the update sequence. This is less likely to happen in fullscreen mode as there is less competing window activity going on.

The second choice, Sync to VBL, causes updates to happen in the time between monitor refreshes, also avoiding tearing. Sometimes it is necessary to include a "flushing latency," which is an offset from the bottom of the display (ie, the last line to be drawn) to allow for any difference between OpenGL being asked to flush its buffers and it actually happening.

The Sync to VBL setting can potentially give the smoothest panning of each of the choices, but may require this additional adjustment to avoid tearing near the bottom or top of the display. If near the bottom, adjust the latency downwards (it can be negative) until the tear goes away. If near the top, adjust the number upwards. See the documentation under Preferences > Advanced for more information.

The last choice, Don't Sync Display, doesn't attempt to coordinate display updates with the monitor refresh and is likely to give some degree of tearing. It is the most basic of the update methods, requiring the least overhead, and is often used when updating windowed OpenGL scenes. However, using OpenGL for panoramas with QTVR-style mouse tracking makes phenomena such as tearing more noticeable, hence the above choices.

Done that, the display is still stuttering. What else?

Another possibility is your video card is running low on texture memory. Try closing windows in other apps that may be using OpenGL texture VRAM. You can also adjust the maximum amount of video card RAM that CubicNavigator will attempt to use in Preferences > Advanced > Maximum OpenGL RAM To Use (MB).

Finally, if relatively old, the graphics card may simply not be able to draw fast enough to match the refresh rate of the screen at the current resolution. On a test system, a 450 MHz computer with an ATI Rage 128 graphics card dating from the year 2000, panning was perfectly smooth when shown in a window, but when going fullscreen on a 1024x768 display, it couldn't keep up and the frame rate dropped considerably. However, switching the screen resolution down to 800x600 made it fine again.

Another alternative here is to switch on the option Use "First Person Shooter" Mode in Fullscreen in Preferences > Mouse, which has the effect of displaying the panorama the way an action game shows the scene. This is often effective at making the most of a machine's capabilities.

When should I increase or decrease the VRAM (Advanced Preferences)?

The "Maximum OpenGL VRAM To Use (MB)" setting in the Advanced Preferences determines what size the images will be reduced to in order to fit in the amount of memory specified.

You can increase this if you are not getting the full resolution (4 green dots) shown at the bottom of the window in the "Display Resolution Indicator" and you feel there is enough VRAM in the graphics card to go higher.

You can decrease it if panoramas do not move very smoothly and/or you get a black or scrambled image when going into fullscreen.

What are the consequences of setting the VRAM too high?

If you have a reasonably recent graphics card and the drivers are up to date, the consequence should only be that the panorama doesn't move as smoothly as it otherwise would. The reason is that computer memory is being used to supplement the VRAM, which slows down the graphics card as it is shuttled back and forth.

On an older graphics card, setting the VRAM too high might result in a black or scrambled screen, especially when going into fullscreen mode.

When I bought my computer, I thought I was getting X amount of VRAM, why can't I use it all?

The graphics card may have X amount of VRAM, but not all of it is available for texture use. The monitor(s) you have connected to the computer require VRAM, and card operations and stored parameters need memory.

Then there is the amount used by the OS itself. Quartz Extreme, Mac OS X's OpenGL accelerated display mode, uses textures to fluidly redraw windows without taxing the processor and also allow very smooth effects like Exposé to take place.

Thus, the amount of VRAM available for use by CubicNavigator to display panoramic VR using OpenGL textures is somewhat less than the nominal amount of VRAM supplied with the graphics card. An optimum amount to use is calculated when the program is first run (or when the preference defaults are restored) and entered in the appropriate Advanced Preferences field, which can then be adjusted up or down.

What are "non-power of 2 textures" and should I use them?

Earlier versions of OpenGL and graphics cards required all textures (images) to be a power of 2, eg, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048, etc. Later versions support textures which aren't a power of 2.

For panoramic VR use, this means that the textures used to represent the panorama can very closely match the original media, for example, displaying a cube face size of 1392x1392 instead of of downscaling to 1024x1024 which would result in a slightly less sharp image.

Generally, if your graphics card supports them you should use them to get this benefit and the option is on by default. Your graphics card supports non power of 2 textures if it supports Quartz Extreme, Mac OS X's OpenGL accelerated display mode. If not, the checkbox in the Advanced Preferences will be dimmed.

The location field doesn't have enough room to see the whole web address, how can I expand it?

First, if you just want to read the address, you can also hover the mouse over the field for a second or two and a tooltip will appear showing the whole address. Otherwise, the location bar expands to fill the space available to it, so you can make more space for it by going to the menu command View > Customize Toolbar and change it to use "Icon only" (which takes less space), "Use Small Size" or remove some of the toolbar buttons completely.

On a web page with a QTVR movie, I clicked the button to toggle to VR view, but the result is incomplete?

You've probably clicked the button before the QuickTime plugin had finished retrieving all of the movie. In this case, only the image areas available can be turned into an OpenGL based VR. To load the full panorama, you can stay in the VR view and click the "reload" button (just left of the location bar) and wait for the movie to download. The panorama will appear strip by strip if it is a cylinder, or cube face by cube face if it is a cubic format QTVR movie.

So how do I know when the QuickTime plugin has finished downloading a movie?

When embedded in a web page, the QuickTime plugin progressively "fills in" the black & gray wireframe with the movie data it has retrieved. When the movie has no black area it is complete. Some QTVR movies have a preview, which is a blurry low-resolution rendition of the actual movie which loads quickly because it is much smaller. For these movies, the download is complete when there are no blurry areas still being filled in.

Why is the "Collect Data From QuickTime Plugin As It Downloads" option in Preferences > Caches dimmed out?

This option is not available in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

I've found a web page that doesn't seem to render properly. Do you want to know about it?

Yes, please email problem links to feedback@clickheredesign.com

The panoramas that I've loaded don't show a map. Why not?

Not many panoramas on the web contain a map, and where they do a map has to be specifically created by the tour's author and added to the movie. There is no specific convention for doing this in QuickTime VR, so there are two methods used: (1) the authoring program can add a map as a QuickTime Sprite so that it remains with the movie, or (2) the author can add a map in the HTML alongside the embedded movie. CubicNavigator can only extract the first type of map, and only from QTVR movies created by CubicConnector 2.0.x, or PTViewer tours.

I've made a QuickTime VR movie with CubicConnector that has a map, but it doesn't show the "direction cone" that indicates the viewer's orientation. Why not?

You need to use CubicConnector's menu command Movie > 'Set Northpoint For This Node' so that it knows which direction is North (or 0° straight up). Otherwise, the direction indicated could be wildly inaccurate. You also need to be using CubicConnector 2.0.7 or later for this northpoint information to be stored in the movie where it can be retrieved by other programs.

I've opened page containing a PTViewer Java applet and the Terminal 'top' program shows very high sustained CPU use?

Yes, Java does that, it's the same in Safari too. Java panoramas eat CPU cycles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Many Java panoramas have an autorotate parameter turned on which spins the panorama unattended until you click it with the mouse. If you don't do this before toggling to VR view, prepare to have 110+% of your CPU(s) eaten.

Does that mean web pages stay active even when I'm in the OpenGL-based VR view?

Yes. Anything shown or playing on a web page remains active even when you switch views. This is handy if, say, there is a soundtrack on the page which you might want to hear while panning around the VR in fullscreen. VRWay's spectacular series of Basilicas are a good example of this.

Going to Slideshow Setup -> Music and clicking the music preview button starts a track playing but the music doesn't stop playing when the setup box goes away, even when I'm not viewing a slideshow. Is this a bug?

It's a feature, not a bug, to let you play music while you pan.

During a recording, periods where the image isn't panning aren't recorded. Why is this?

The recording mode only records when the view is actually panning. To stay in the same place for a long period of time, pan over it very slowly and it will be recorded.

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