The VR Worx 2.0 Feature Summary

Earlier versions of VR Toolbox's various products allowed you much of this functionality, but the current 2.0 version brings a wealth of marked enhancements. For projects like Web- or CD-based e-commerce, you can now build sales rooms allowing walking from room-to-room and where objects can be picked up and rotated from any angle. Anything can be a hot spot to a linear movie (such as a video), another room such as different shop department, or a link to a shopping system to purchase an item.

While there are more expensive 3D-based systems that allow you to build these kinds of environments, what makes VR Worx unique is that everything is done using photographs and QuickTime VR (QTVR). And, because it is photo-based, you don't need to deal with image modeling, rendering, or complex VRML plug-in compatibility and cross-platform issues. Acura has used this kind of technology to show images on their website allowing you to rotate a vehicle completely to see every side. Rather than develop a complex 3D model, they simply shot photos of the car on a rotating platform and embedded them into QuickTime VR "movies."

What makes this new version a significant update is that object movies can be synchronized within a panorama, so if you walk around a room or pan, the object(s) in the scene change perspective or rotation with you. You could create a virtual sales assistant who turned to follow your panning so he/she was always facing your direction. To keep in step with the times, VR Worx also now imports many more file types than the ubiquitous .pict format, including SGI, Photoshop, BMP, JPEG (including tagged types which I tested with my low-end Fuji MX-1200 camera), PNG, TIFF, TGA, and QTIF. This opens up new options because you could shoot a video panorama quickly then export the frames to individual JPEG files and easily import them into a scene. Enhanced scripting is now available for both Mac and PC and built-in digitizing functions allow you to capture images right from your capture card into the program. Matte effects allow for basic color-keying. Optimized Web enabled codecs are included for better output to Internet-based presentations. A "hyperstitch" function allows faster "scene rendering" at the expense of some quality, but it's ideal for prototyping a project more quickly.

In practice I was pleasantly surprised how effective VR Worx performed in stitching together several frames which were shot "off the cuff" without the use of a tripod. The layout of the program provides for a unified, tab-based interface to move from one step in the process to the next. To change something, you simply go back a step, make edits, then "re-render" your new panorama, then move on to interactive functions, and finally the output. Images can be exported up to 3,000x10,000 pixels in size. Compared to applications of just a few years ago, the auto-stitching truly seems magical with fairly high quality blending between frames. Keep in mind that your end result is absolutely related to what you start with, so proper lighting and weather conditions can greatly impact the "stitches."

It was a bit tricky to align difficult images, shot without a tripod, and I had a few instances of unusual screen redraws where images would jump in the work window, under MacOS9.1, while editing. The alignment screen could be a bit more intuitive, with better controls for selections and numerical data entry. Now you have to keep nudging one unit at a time to make corrections in placement. Still, start with quality images and you likely won't need to do much manual correction.

The multinode features alone are worth the price. This system gives you all the tools to build scenes like an art gallery where you see an on-screen 360-degree environment, read text or view still images and linear movies in that scene, then click on a doorway to move into another "room" with all the same kind of features. Very neat. And, you're not limited to full wrap-around panoramas; the software supports narrower image angles.

Documentation is first-rate with a 255 pp. printed manual, what's new guide, and a screen shot and simple directions for every step. VR Worx 2.0 is not a "shovelware" package of several older products, it's an integrated tool that performs multiple functions from one interface, allowing you to utilize the functions you want or don't, as the project calls for them. VR Worx 2.0 combines VR PanoWorx, VR ObjectWorx, and VR SceneWorx (which are still available separately). A dual-platform CD contains both MacOS and Windows versions, as well as sample source images to learn with, tutorials, and the manual in PDF format.

VR Worx 2.0 is an excellent choice for both learning QTVR, and building immersive environments like games, galleries and stores that bring the viewer "into the scene."

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