Immersive photographic panoramas of Cultural Heritage
1873-2002 in dynamic viewers on-line (Internet & CD
media project)
Dariusz CZARNIAWSKI1, Jacek GANCARSON2, Grzegorz KARYKOWSKI1, Thomas
MAJCHRZAK, Kazimierz STACHURSKI4
1
City of Warsaw Promotional Department, POLAND
2
Eurofresh, Stockholm, SWEDEN
3
National Museum ín Warsaw, POLAND
ABSTRACT
The tradition of taking a circular series of photos from a single
focal point, in order to show broad views, originated in the mid19th century. These sets of photographs were often joined
together into a single panoramic image. Although they precisely
document the surrounding view, spatial understanding of the
landscape, angular locations of objects in the field of view, and
mutual distances between these objects are difficult to perceive
and compare. This is obvious if we recall the fact that our
immediate visual recognition of surrounding space is determined
by an ocular, sequential scan (by turning our head around), with
an active field of view limited to approx. 90 degrees. Therefore, it
is much easier to acquire spatial information when playing a video
clip which was recorded moving around the vertical axis on a
tripod, or when scanning a panorama leftward-rightward through
an observation window (see Figure 1), than to acquire spatial
information encompassed by a very broad panorama, pieced
together from a series of photos and printed on paper, or by a very
broad panoramic painting on a large canvas. For such panoramas
it became natural to present them on surfaces surrounding the
visitors. The next step toward facilitation of perception is
displaying the panorama interactively on a computer screen (see
Figure 2) with the help of suitable viewer-software, such as a Java
applet for low resolution panoramas, or Quick Time plugin for
high resolution panoramas. These viewers allow infinite rotation
in both horizontal directions, zooming in and upward and
downward tilting within the vertical boundaries of the panorama.
Such a tool makes the whole perception process more intuitive
and efficient, especially in the case of very wide, or circular (360
degree), panoramic photographs. The mapping process in our
mind here is quite similar to what we use in the real environment.
In this way we can learn more from old panoramas than our
predecessors, who had to take in entire panoramas at a single
glance.
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UNESCO Virtual Congress, October-November 2002.
© 2002 UNESCO WHC 1-00000-000-0/00/0000…$5.00.
Figure 1. Linear presentation of a surround panorama (old
panoramic photographs on paper or a large canvas, rectangular
images on a computer screen).
Figure 2. Infinite rotating presentation of a circular surround
panorama (circular room or panorama viewer on a computer
screen).
However, the level of interest in the technical issues of projecting
immersive panoramas on the web depends on the degree to which
a given business depends on its web interface in general, and on
visualisation techniques in particular. Use of immersive
panoramas as a natural extension of traditional photographs is still
not obvious. One reason may be uncertainty due to the legal
controversy over proprietary inventions [Oxaal 1993] encountered
in daily practice by individual photographers world-wide. The
second reason may be the growing diversification of Internet
technology as a result of its commercialisation. It is more difficult
to optimise the presentation so that panoramas will be rapidly
accessible to all web visitors. Not being fully convinced that
access to immersive panoramas by their Internet customers is
secure, some web content editors avoid using them.
In our Internet project, a Virtual Tour through Warsaw Old Town
– UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage site No. 30, we decided to design
and configure a Remote Observation Panel [Gancarson, 2001],
basing on a highly configurable Java viewer [Dersch, 1998]. It
provides a secure Internet presentation of a virtual tour on most
OSs. The tour contains 35 immersive panoramas from Warsaw’s
Old Town. The panel is launched in a pop-up window, in front of
descriptive text about the Cultural Heritage site (see Figure 3).
them two surround panoramas, from an Internet directory of old
panoramic photographs at the Library of Congress. They have
undergone basic retouching in order to reduce optical noise. Due
to the low resolution, a Java viewer was chosen. In similar way, a
circular panorama of Warsaw, dated from 1873 and archived at
the National Museum in Warsaw, was first displayed with this
technique in August 2002, using both a PTviewer and Quick Time
plugin. Web resolution examples are available at the url:
www.eurofresh.se/history/ and on CD.
Keywords: Panoramic photography, immersive imaging, online
visualisation, cultural heritage online, perception extension, old
photography, history, historical photography, photographic
panorama, educational tool.
REFERENCES
GANCARSON, J., Virtual Tour through the Old Town,
Historical Centre of Warsaw, World Heritage site No. 30, in a
Remote Observation Panel:
http://www.eurofresh.se/warsaw/index-wh30.htm
http://archiwum.warszawa.um.gov.pl/test/foto/
DERSCH. H., PtViewer, http://www.fh-furtwangen.de/~dersch/
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Panoramic Photographs,
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pnhtml/pnhome.html
OXAAL, F., Pictosphere background:
http://www.pictosphere.com/picto-background.html
Figure 3. Web view of the panorama panel.
The text may be read while waiting for the panoramas to
download. The pop-up window’s canvas area is used in full. An
interactive map showing all panoramas locations and a dynamic
pointer indicating viewing direction are adjacent to the panorama
viewer. The map’s compass orientation is also shown. Pointers are
activated individually for each panorama displayed. Visitors can
launch a particular panorama in 3 ways: (a) from the map, (b)
from the list, or (c) by exploration of transient hotspots on
subsequent panoramas. The internal control panel contains
buttons to pan in four directions, a stop button, a reset button for
fast levelling of the field of view, zoom-in and zoom-out buttons
and an information button. Panoramas are stored in JPG format
with a volume of 120-200 Kbytes each. As the panel contains 35
spherical panoramas in small files, a map and compass, the use of
multiple files and a Java PTviewer is the most effective on the
web in the current state of technology, as other web formats still
do not provide all the features required.
Old panoramas were also presented on the Internet in a pilot
project of 2001. With the use of Flash, Quick Time and Java
applets, we converted and displayed seven panoramas, among
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dariusz Czarniawski, officer in charge, City of Warsaw
Promotional Department, Poland. Email:
darek@czerniawski.bydg.pl
Jacek Gancarson is a web developer, Director of Eurofresh,
Stockholm, Sweden. He can be contacted at: Eurofresh,
Hauptvägen 101, 12358 Farsta, SWEDEN.
Email: jacek.gancarson@eurofresh.se
Grzegorz Karykowski, Webmaster City of
Warsaw Promotional Department, POLAND.
Email: gkarykowski@warszawa.um.gov.pl
Thomas Majchrzak, Programmer, Echeloh. 39,
44149 Dortmund, GERMANY. Email:
thomas@musik-pegasus.de
Dr Kazimierz Stachurski is Exhibitions and Marketing Director
of the National Museum in Warsaw, POLAND. He can be
contacted at: National Museum Warsaw, Al. Jerozolimskie 3, 00495 Warsaw, POLAND. Email: kstachurski@mnw.art.pl