PangeaVR is a free Web browser plug-in for Mac OS X designed to speed up the display of QuickTime VR movies using OpenGL-based hardware graphics acceleration. Fullscreen panos can be viewed at frame rates in the 150 to 350 fps range. It has no Java memory limitations and a modern, slick user interface. PangeaVR does require special tags to activate the plug-in otherwise the browser will default to software-based QTVR rendering.

What PangeaVR doesn’t do is override QuickTime as the default player. It’s not meant as a replacement for QuickTime or Java but as an additional option. Currently, it is only available for Mac OS X and is compatible with Safari, Netscape and Mozilla. It is not compatible with Internet Explorer nor is not available for Windows.

After 20 years in video games, Brian Greenstone got burned out and needed a change. “A few months ago,” he says, “I got interested in QTVR photography after I saw some of the amazing fullscreen panoramas on the web”.

He began researching the different Java and Flash plug-ins for displaying QTVR movies but found them slow. “The Java ones have serious memory limitations which reduce the maximum size of the panorama to less than half of the resolution I typically create them,” Greenstone says. “So, I figured there had to be a better way: OpenGL. It only took me one week to write PangeaVR, and I'm really happy with it.”

Greenstone plans on releasing the source code as soon as he cleans it up. “I'm looking for someone willing to port it to Windows or Linux, and then I think it will be adopted my many more people.” Once the code is open sourced, he hopes that others will make improvements on it.

Like many, Greenstone hopes Apple updates QuickTime’s QTVR capabilities. “They pioneered this technology, but they've done nothing with it in five or six years,” he complains. “It's slow and lacks the features of many of the newer Java plug-ins.”

Download PangeaVR and View Samples here: http://www.pangeasoft.net/pano/plugin/

Update:
PangeaVR has just posted the full source code and Xcode project for PangeaVR 1.01.

03/22/05
A new 1.1 version of the PangeaVR plug-in that adds several new features has just been posted with the following updates:
• Added AUTOPAN parameter so that movies can auto-rotate.
• Added Preferences dialog which is invoked by pressing F1 while the mouse is over the pano. The prefs dialog is also now accessable via a new icon in the controller bar. In the prefs you can now set your desired Texture Compression setting, and also the desired Drag Friction setting. These can now override what's in the HTML of a web site, or can be set to do whatever the HTML says.

Brian[at]pangeasoft[dot]net