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Making the Holyland Virtual TourWhen I first got into computers in the mid-80s, I always thought how great it would be to create a virtual tour of the Holy Land. When Apple developed Quicktime, my dream became a possibility with the use of digital video playback as well as Quicktime VR technology. After a few years, computer ownership ballooned to almost every household and CD drives became common place. The dream became a reality with new software and compression algorithms. I started a business doing video, then moved to a job developing demo CDs. This provided me enough knowledge to actually create my dream CD (not to mention a cross-platform title for both Windows and Macintosh!) I began the actual work by creating a basic navigation structure based on maps and a simple graphic user interface. I decided that stationary items were best seen as still pictures. Items such as water and people were best in video. However, a virtual tour is not a virtual tour without navigable panoramas. But there was a big problem-- how to make them? Here is how one VR is developed. To create a VR, a series of portrait view photos (that overlap) are created using a special tripod. This tripod will turn your camera sideways (allowing more top and bottom view), keep it absolutely level, and will turn to capture the 360° surroundings.
Special software is used to align, warp and stitch together the 16 or more photos into one, long panorama.
When the panorama is complete, additional software is used to turn it into a VR panorama that you can navigate. Unfortunately, my troubles began when I checked my wallet. If my virtual tour was going to be what I envisioned, I would have to do at least 50 to 60 nodes in over 3 dozen locations. At 16 photos per VR, that came to over 2,000 still photos. Another wrench in the works was the contrast problem. Almost all of the VRs will be exterior shots. I cannot plan my shots to be out of the sun since 360° makes sun refraction and harsh shadows an inevitability. If I set the camera F-stop to capture areas in the shadow, the areas in sunlight would be washed out. If I set it to capture areas in the sunlight, the shadow areas would be black. I decided the only solution was to bracket my panorama shots, that is, take one set of photos for shadow, another set for sunlight, and two more in-between. The result were 4 panoramas that I can stack on top of each other in layers and erase the dark or light portions as needed. I could then erase black areas down until I could see the detail. This was very time-consuming, but the results were fantastic.
The bad news in this technique is that it bumped my total stills to 8,000! How in the world was I to capture 8,000+ images on a shoestring budget? Film was out of the question-- ever try pricing film and scanning of 8,000 photos? Digital photos were another alternative, but CompactFlash cards were expensive and a $100 card would hold up to 300 photos. I then had a brainstorm. Some digital video cameras (with 3 CCD chips) had good results in creating still images. The Sony TRV-900 had such a reputation. I designed a special tripod mount that would turn the camera on its side, adjust for the nodal point of the lens and provide not only a bubble level, but a compass as well so that all my VRs began at North. This was necessary to make sure the compass used in the Holyland Tour was somewhat accurate.
I developed and tested a new way to capture multiple images on a very tight budget. Setting the video camera to progressive mode (used to capture still images to DV tape) I would walk around the tripod, thus capturing a full 360° of images to tape. I would then use the cameras firewire to capture the full pan as a digital movie and I would extract the images via software techniques. (Imagine the tour guides in Israel watching this meshugener goy walking around his tripod once, then again, then again, then again!) This technique solved many problems, first, the expense of capturing so many photos, the other being that both time restraints and rough environments made necessary quick setup and capture.
The time came to actually take the tour in Israel and Jordan to capture all the media. Because of the expense of taking the tour, I had only one shot at capturing all the VR and video footage. It was not easy, especially Masada where I suffered heat exhaustion, Petra with sunburn, and Dan with Poison Oak. When I came home from the tour, there was no time to rest. I immediately started downloading the footage and creating the CD content. I spent countless hours meticulously stitching and touching up the VR panoramas, editing video clips, correcting media capture mistakes and developing maps for the interface. Months went by and my first version was complete. I sent it in for manufacturing and after two demonstrations in my home church, I had made enough return on investment to pay for the tour, all the equipment, the computer, the software, and the CD manufacturing! Rave responses from the users put me into gear to clean up the CD for version two and to tackle the next big hurtle.
The most difficult portion of the Holyland Virtual Tour was not the media, but the audio of the virtual tour guide. I was blessed to have Robert Probert come aboard and be the teacher. Not only has he been to Israel several times, but his love for the land, the people, and his clear teaching style made his contribution perfect. Hours were spent preparing the studies, huddled in a studio, recording and editing over 8 hours of teaching. Sleep was lost for both of us due to nightmares of missing an audio cue, a defective video, wrong information or an embarrassing typo. After all the nightmares ceased, the end result proved spectacular. A tour of Israel and Jordan with over 70 still photos, 40 video clips, 60 VR panoramas, 200 paragraphs of factoids, 8 hours of thought-provoking teaching spanning over 40 locations! In all my research, I have never found a more complete immersion into what the Holy Land is all about than the Holyland Virtual Tour. Buy it online and see for yourself how exciting and life-changing this location can be! The Author |
