The idea is simple: Just photograph a VR image (cylindrical or cubic panorama, or an object movie) anytime during the 24-hour period of Saturday, March 20, local time. Prepare your best, most interesting VR, in QTVR format, and send it in by April 2 for inclusion on the website.

To register for the event, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/wwp/

The Geography Computing Facility at the University of California Berkeley sponsors the event and the Geo-Images Project hosts the website. This is a non-commercial project, done simply to create enthusiasm for VR photography, and provide an outlet for our collective creativity. Your work will retain your personal copyright, and you need only give permission to host it on the World Wide Panorama website. Links will be provided back to your own site.

Don Bain and Landis Bennett are running the project at the moment but hope to bring on a couple more people at a later date. “We are not going to be real strict about the day and time -- this is supposed to be fun. Take a pano on E-Day, Saturday, March 20, your local date and time” Don Bain says. “This is a modest undertaking, just a few of us volunteering our time to run it. No corporate sponsors, press releases, or anything fancy. Basically we think it will be fun, and valuable at the same time.”

Don Bain and Landis Bennett provide some history of the event below.

HISTORY
The idea began back in December of 1997, when Robert Abbett (Rabbett) in Hawaii suggested a simultaneous VR shoot. It was very spontaneous; the whole thing got organized in a couple of weeks. We all shot at the same exact moment - evening in Europe, middle of the day in the U.S., morning in Hawaii, before dawn in Australia. It was a fascinating snapshot of the world, offered up by the interesting people who made up the VR community back then (we were almost all basically beginners).

Rabbett named his event The Wrinkle in Time. The first event fortuitously occurred on the Winter Solstice, so he organized another for the next big date on the natural calendar, the Spring Equinox. The second Wrinkle was more organized, but just as much fun.

There were more Wrinkles, culminating in the Millenium Wrinkle, shot on January 1, 2000. Many thanks to Rabbett for the great idea and all the effort that went into the series of Wrinkles he organized.

WHY DO IT AGAIN?
Virtual reality photography (QTVR and similar) has been around for about nine years now. Collectively we have published tens of thousands of wonderful images on web sites. Yet I am constantly meeting people who have never seen a VR panorama before. They are always impressed with what I show them, often wildly enthusiastic.

So we need to get the word out - this is important work! Immersive imagery is virtual travel, real geography, genuine art, and great entertainment. It is a glimpse into other people's lives, a look around in places we have never been and may never go. It can be unique personal views of the world or dispassionate photojournalism. It deserves to be seen by more people.

Back at the time of the original Wrinkle the VR photography world was smaller. We almost all used the same computer (Mac), software (from Apple), and communicated through the same list (quicktime-vr@lists.apple.com). Now the community is fragmented into many specialties and technical varieties: pros and hobbyists and newbies, commercial and educational, PanoTools and Stitcher and QTVRAS (and many others). It would be nice to get together again, just for the love of creating striking and meaningful VR images.

Aside from the community of producers, there are the consumers, the huge numbers of people who enjoy VR images on the web and on CD's. As an educator myself, I particularly value panoramas for the way they can show us people and places around the world, their diversity and commonality. I remember images from the first few wrinkles that included a cozy dinner table in Scandinavia, Rabbett's favorite beach in Hawaii, the pre-dawn darkness in Singapore, even inside a refrigerator!

WHO IS BEHIND THIS PROJECT?

Don Bain:
In real life I manage the Geography Computing Facility at the University of California Berkeley, where I also teach cartography and field studies. The rest of the time I travel and take panoramas for my web site: Don Bain's Virtual Guidebooks. This project (my wife refers to it as my obsession) has taken me from Tahiti to the Arctic, from the prehistoric ruins of the Southwest to the glaciers of the Canadian Rockies. As a compulsive educator it has been a real treat, documenting and sharing my landscapes with the world. I have taken over 4000 panoramas, with about 3500 currently on the site VirtualGuidebooks.

Landis Bennett:
I met Don when I attended the University of California Berkeley as geography major. Fortuitously I started there at just about the same time QTVR reared its head. Don was just learning all about it and because we both share a great love of travel and photography he introduced me to his new enthusiasm. I took it from there and did a bit of my own traveling. I have about 1000 panoramas from all over North America on my website, 360Geographics, and many, many more that have yet to be put on the web - if only for a little more time. When not making panoramas of my travels, I'm making maps both self-published and for hire.

Update March 15, 2004
The event continues to grow - 166 participants are now registered, representing six continents (Antartica is not represented -yet). Many of the best known VR photographers are participating.

Countries represented so far:

Australia, Austria, British Virgin Islands, Belgium, Brazil, China, Denmark, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Netherlands, Northern Ireland (UK), Portugal, Reunion (Indian Ocean), Scotland (UK), Slovenia, Sweden,
Switzerland, Ukraine, United Arab Republics (Dubai), Venezuela

United States and Canadian provinces:
Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina,
Ontario, Oregon, Ottawa, Quebec, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin
Email:
Don Bain:dbain@socrates.Berkeley.EDU
Landis Bennett: landis@mac.com