To help me come up with a theme I have decided to look at why QTVR is used as a medium. This is not the same as how it is being used, which is a topic I will cover in a later blog.
One of the main reasons to use QTVR is to show people a large area. Instead of a limited 60 degree field of vision, in a photograph, QTVR allows people to see much more. In a cylindrical QTVR you can view a 360 degree panorama and cubic QTVRs allow you to see in all directions. This gives more freedom and bring me to the net use: control. QTVR gives control of what they are viewing to the user. Instead of limiting the user to a single image, or a gallery of images it gives them to freedom and control to move around a 360 degree panorama and decide which part to look and move around to other parts with ease.
This also brings up a disadvantage of using the medium, as giving the user the freedom to view 360 degrees or more means that nothing is hidden. When taking a photo you can change the content of the frame by positioning the camera so certain things that you don’t want to be seen (for whatever reason) are not in the shot. In panoramic though everything can be seen, so it might not be a desirable medium in certain instances.
A third reason why QTVR might be used is to give the user a sense of place. If the purpose of displaying an image is to show the viewer a location or even a specific location, creating a panoramic shows the user the things outside of the shot you would have had if you had only take a photo. This might give you a greater scope for the feeling of the location. For instance, a beach shot might show you the sea, but a panoramic might show some more plants which look like they are blowing in the wind and rough waves giving you the feeling that it is very cold and windy.
It can also give the user a better idea as to the location or relative distances within the panorama. If you had an album of holiday photos, with one of the beach and one of your hotel which is just across from the beach which is conventionally acceptable. However, in a QTVR scenario a cylindrical QTVR would allow you to be able to see both the beach and the hotel. By moving around it you would be able to see them and all points in between giving you that sense of distance and location, enhancing the users feeling of what it is like to be there without actually being there.
