Live Picture's Reality Studio
By R. Shamms Mortier
When you start to think about placing visuals on your Web page, numerous options come to mind. Most of the options -- static images and movies, for example -- involve no visitor interactions. The visitor is presented with the image or movie, and that's it. But we know that interaction is the name of the game when it comes to enticing a visitor to stay a little longer. Imagemaps with embedded URL hot spots do this to some extent, letting visitors feel as if they're taking part in the discovery of information, like following a treasure map. Other interactive technologies, like VRML, exist, but they're somewhat difficult to design for. Is there no middle ground?
Well, it so happens there is. Apple has a media format called QuickTime VR. Most Web-page designers are familiar with it. Simply described, QuickTime VR lets you stand in the middle of a 3D graphic or photographic scene and spin around so that you can see a full 360-degree vista. You can embed URL targets in the scene, just as if it were a standard 2D imagemap. All of this accentuates visitor interaction and exploration. QuickTime VR, however, has been an underutilized media option. Live Picture, with its Reality Studio application, is attempting to change all of this.
Reality Studio is a collection of six modules for Web-page design: PhotoVista (Studio Edition), Object Modeler, Image Server, Studio Editor, Viewer, and a special Photoshop plug-in that addresses the FlashPix image format.
