spinControl:VR is a custom QuickTime movie which, when embedded in a Web page with a QTVR, can control the QuickTime VR’s pan, tilt and zoom (among other things).
People who want to offer an alternative to the limited, standard QuickTime VR controller can now do so — without having to design one, & then spend hours coding it for themselves.
By using spinControl:VR, your QuickTime VR files remain clean; there are no extra tracks or scripts in your QTVR which make it difficult to repurpose your panoramas. Plus, you just need one spinControl controller for your domain — no matter how many panoramas or virtual tours you have on your Web site!
I absolutely believe that the beauty of QTVR is the interactivity — clicking, panning, zooming and more, all directly from the image.
But, I find that the general public sometimes has no idea what to do when presented with QuickTime VR.
So in mid-2004, in an effort to make my clients’ fullscreen experience more intuitive and pleasurable, I created a simple controller for the VRs at my site. Since then only one person has asked me how to navigate.
I decided to offer the original spinControl:VR to the public for free, and continued developing the hextended and Linguist version which allows more advanced QTVR creators to customize the controller’s color scheme and/or language however they see fit.
spinControl:VR has grown into a very robust custom solution, perfect for including in Virtual Tours, panoramic photography sites needing full screen display, or just general use by Quicktime VR photographers and developers. It inexpensively allows the developer to control external Audio files, along with all the other great things it does. :-)
Many VR photographers embrace different VR display technologies, so why not a different controller? :-)
(Now, once folks do understand how to navigate QTVR via click-and-drag, they might never go back to using spinControl:VR. And that’s great!)
NOTE:
spinControl:VR is no longer being actively developed. As of QuickTime 7.2, spinControl:VR was working fine. It is hoped that it will continue to do so with newer releases of QuickTime, but it is recommended that you download and test the free version of spinControl:VR before purchase.
Also, as of December 2007, both Harmony and Linguist come together for one price. Nice!
Cheers!,
Patrick
For more about Patrick and what he does when he’s not creating spinControl:VR goodness, check out CheathamLane or FlashPanos.com .
