The Computer Guy

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Computer Guy,
I visited a website that said it had "panoramic" photographs and I couldn't see the photographs. I just saw a message that said I needed a program called QUICKTIME for Windows. What's this all about and how do I do it?

The site that you cannot open contains a number of dramatic Quicktime Virtual Reality (QTVR) views. A virtual reality view is one which, at first, just looks like a photograph. However, if you drag your mouse cursor to the left or right or up or down over the photo, the scene shifts just as it would if you were standing looking at the actual scene and turning your head.

By this means, you can actual get a 360 degree view of an area (as though you were turning) or a 360 degree view of an object (as though you were turning it). In addition you can zoom in or out with regard to the photo. Thus, if there were a photo of a room with a vase, you would be able to zoom in on the vase to the exclusion of everything else in the room.

There is one more variation of note, digital photos can be of lesser or greater resolution. All that means is that in a photo of greater resolution, more electronic bits are crammed in to any given part of the photo. The more bits, the sharper the photo. The fewer bits, the duller the photo. When you zoom into a photo, the area you are zooming into is magnified. If the photo is high resolution, the zoomed area tends to retain its clarity. If it is not high resolution, the area you zoom in on tends to fragmentize into unrecognizable bits.

As someone said, "a picture is worth a thousand words". So you will just have to do the following in order to experience virtual reality.

A Pentium-based PC or compatible computer
At least 16MB of RAM
Windows 95/98/ NT/2000 system software
A Sound Blaster or compatible sound card and speakers

Go the following site: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

At this site you will be able to download a free copy of Apple's program called "Quicktime". The button that lets you do so will be in the lower left hand corner of the window -- scroll down to it. The button says "Download Quicktime". Make sure that in the area just above the button, the windows option is checked and not the macintosh option. Press the Download Quicktime button. Then follow the instructions to download and install Quicktime. After installation, you will probably have to reboot your computer.

Then, go to the following site, which displays a number of virtual reality views of places in Greece: http://www.stoa.org/metis/

Select one of them and, it will download to your machine. Be patient. Quicktime files are quite large and therefore take a good deal of time to download. If all goes well, you'll be able to move your mouse pointer on the photo and experience virtual reality.