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As the technique is still in the development stage, there are image quality and movement flow issues that will be improved upon. Currently, clicking on the pano makes it momentarily flicker to black, but the company says this will soon be fixed. Flashclub is also looking at expanding the possibilities of the tool by including image and video upload for direct online project viewing of flat images, and also spherical and cubic projection. “Basically, we’re aiming at creating a tool that can compete with the QuickTime VR viewer plugin”, says Flashclub’s Maarten Reijmerink. “Furthermore, by creating the tool in Flash, we are adding a whole range of interactivity to panoramas previously unavailable in QTVR, thanks to Flash's programming language, Actionscript.”

View a demonstration of this technique here:
http://www.flashclub.nl/flash8/flashVR/

VRMag asked Flashclub’s Tim Hudson some questions about the application and his company:

Do you plan to implement other features such as move and zoom?

Zooming in is definitely in the cards. We also wish to do up/down panning. We also plan to allow users to upload their own panos online to test in our player. The player automatically works out the lens angle used based on the size of the pano and bases the cylindrical radius on that angle. The current resizing is only FOV not lens angle; we could easily add a slider to change the lens angle.

The interesting part is the panoramic video. Now Flash8 has much better video performance and quality including full 8 bit alpha channels. This would make for some VERY interesting layered panoramic video!


Will the motion image quality remain the same? What are the limits of the image quality?

We plan to improve the look of the motion quality. The quality depends on the original panorama quality but the basic rule is bigger picture =slower processing speed and longer download. It’s always a tradeoff between size and speed.

Did you create the resizable controller and viewer for a specific project?

No, this was just an easy feature to add – we are trying to create a QTVR killer.

Is Flash 8 necessary to make a resizable viewer?

Yes this application is Flash 8 based, it will not work without the newest features of the flash player V8

Do you have any other examples?

We are working on flash 8 applications but I don’t think they relate to panoramas as such

Please tell us a little about your company, it’s structure and mission?

Flashclub are a team of innovative Flash developers. We work with a core team of five and interface with a broad network of expert coders and designers for larger projects. We develop a broad range of online and offline solutions for clients using Flash. Our work covers both educational and business markets. Our specialties include developing online and mobile multiplayer gaming platforms, web applications priority Content Management Solutions for Flash, e-learning interactions, dynamic screen design and interactive applications for the web. Flashclub is the brainchild of Tim Hudson who has been building his team since 2000. Our goal is to become the best team of Flash innovators in the Netherlands, and we are well on our way.

Besides implementing the interactive panorama using the new Flash 8 functionality, we are continually developing systems that enable common users to maintain their own interactive web content easily and effectively. Our CMS already supports video, audio, image and text manipulation and once the new Flash 8 player is released, we plan to support the new panorama technology as well. This will mean that any user, (architect bureaus, real estate agents, hotels, etc) will be able to leverage this technology within their website, independently and cost effectively.
Email: tim[at]flashclub[dot]nl