Rangefinder Magazine
Columns, August 2001

Digital Photography: VR & Monitor Management by John Rettie

Virtual reality photography—it’s not that long since Apple wowed everyone with its introduction of Quicktime VR images, which allowed a viewer to move around an image within a 360 degree submersive view. Initially it was quite complicated to create these panoramic images as it involved taking several images and then stitching them together to make one seamless image. Nowadays there are several ways of making VR images with systems costing anywhere from under $100 to many thousands of dollars.

The most difficult Virtual Reality (VR) photography is photographing an object or person, because one has to move the subject and take images from different angles. This can be accomplished by placing the subject on a turntable and rotating it while the camera is kept in one position. On the other hand, capturing images of the view that surrounds a central point is obviously much easier. Nonetheless, any photographer who has ever tried to make a panoramic montage out of pictures taken on a regular camera knows how hard it is to match up two or three pictures, let alone make a montage of images that seamlessly wraps around 360 degrees. Technology has come to the rescue and I’ve been trying out two very different solutions to automate the production of panoramic VR images for use on a website.

iPIX
If you’ve been in the market recently looking for a house and have used the Internet for your searching, you’ve undoubtedly come across sites that include virtual tours of rooms in a house. Many real estate ads include a small iPIX icon, which indicates that there are VR images on that agent’s website produced by a software company called iPIX.

The iPIX system works with digital cameras that can use a fisheye lens that produce a full 180-degree image, such as the fisheye lens on the Nikon Coolpix 950/990/995 series of cameras.

The iPIX system uses a fisheye lens on a digital camera mounted on a special adapter for taking two images 180 degrees apart.	A pair of fisheye images are used to provide a totally submersive VR image	Inset: In less than 30 seconds, the iPIX software unwraps and stitches together the two images in a very good match.

In order to create a VR iPIX image, the camera with the fisheye lens has to be attached to a special tripod mount so that the camera can be rotated to capture two images exactly opposite each other. In this way, the full 360-degree view both horizontally and vertically is captured in a matching pair of images. The iPIX software then “unfolds’ these two images to produce one VR file.

It’s really quite amazing how, in less than half a minute, the software transforms two fisheye images into one VR image that can be viewed at 360 degrees in both the horizontal and vertical directions. It’s so fully immersive that the top of the tripod is clearly visible in the bottom of the picture. By carefully choosing where the split is made for the two pictures the software merges the two images so it’s difficult to tell where they were joined.

Despite the complicated job, the software is very straightforward to use. However one cannot save the image files that are created without having a special key code. Four or 12 codes are included in the initial package, but extra codes need to be purchased at a cost of about $25 each from the iPIX website. At this price one needs to make sure the images captured are the ones wanted; otherwise, a lot of money can be spent on images that might never be posted on a website.

Prices start at $149.95 for a tripod rotator, software and 12 image-unlocking codes. This version only works for those who already own a fisheye lens and appropriate camera. The starter kit ($349.95) adds a fisheye lens for use on selected digital cameras, mainly Olympus and Nikon models. Other kits cost up to $1500 and include a camera as well as the lens and accessories. These kits are aimed at non-photographers such as real estate agents who want to get images up on their sites quickly and easily.

Obviously the skill of the photographer in positioning the camera and arranging the lighting comes into play but it proved to be fairly easy to produce a convincing 360 degree image that shows all sides of the view in a car, room or back yard.

Surroundphoto
Compared to iPIX and other methods of producing VR images, the newly introduced solution from Surroundphoto.com is very cost effective and simple to use. The system consists of a uniquely designed circular parabolic mirror that is mounted on the end of a rod and held above a mirror angled at 45 degrees in a black box. A variety of different consumer-level digital cameras can be mounted on this contraption so that the lens points onto the lower mirror and captures a reflection of the donut shaped image reflected in the mirror. Once this donut image has been captured, the Surroundphoto software turns it into a long, one-piece 360 degree panoramic image that is saved as a Quicktime VR movie. It can then be viewed by any computer that has the Quicktime plug-in installed, which is just about every computer nowadays. By moving one’s mouse around the image one can view the 360-degree picture.

Surroundphoto’s VR system consists of a hyperbolic mirror mounted above a 45-degree mirror so the camera can capture an image via the two mirrors.	he final VR image produced by the Surroundphoto software enables one to move through 360 degrees horizontally.	The donut-shaped surroundphoto image is unwrapped by the Surroundphoto software.

Naturally the image quality is so-so, as the saved picture is only 2314x297 pixels in size. It is an image that can only be viewed in a horizontal frame as there is no vertical picture, unlike an iPIX image. In most cases this is not a problem as there is not usual detail to be viewed in the ceiling or floor directly above or below the camera. At this time the Surroundphoto processing software is only available for Windows, but the saved VR images can be viewed on any computer with a Quicktime plug-in.

As in all VR photography, the trick to getting a decent image is careful placement of the camera and even lighting. The camera needs to be positioned at a height so that the walls are included but not too much of the ceiling. Obviously it’s important to keep the camera level, which means mounting the camera on a tripod. While the tripod will not show up in the picture the operator will unless the camera is set to be released via a timer. Because the image is captured in one shot, it is possible to capture images with movement in them, such as crowds, which is not possible with other VR systems.

Some adjustments to the picture can be made in the program and Surroundphoto says that the next version of the software, which is free, will offer more tweaking capabilities. Once the parameters have been set up, the image is saved as a preview with “surroundphoto.com” watermark plastered all over the picture. In order to remove the watermark one has to register with Surroundphoto and pay $6.99 per finished image. Yes, this is the way the company makes its money, as it only charges $69 for the mirror system used to capture the images. The whole processing and entering of the unlocking keys is done through the Internet and it is possible to purchase several keys at one time.

Although the end result is not as good as iPIX images, the cost of entry and the processing charges are a lot less. In addition, the use of Quicktime, which is a widely used viewing software, is better than the proprietary iPIX viewer.

Colorvision’s Monitor Spyder is attached to a monitor to perform a series of color readings in order to produce a unique custom ICC profile for accurate monitor colors.

Colorvision Spyder
We all know only too well how a photographic print changes subtly over time. A computer monitor is unfortunately just as susceptible to changing with time. On the whole, most of us probably only change the settings on our monitors once in a blue moon—i.e., when something just doesn’t look right.

In the pre-press printing world, where color matching is vitally important, high-end monitors include colorimeters that can be used to regularly check the display’s color temperature and luminance. Then the image on the display can be relied on to match that of the image being printed on the printing press. While these systems have always been available, for the rest of us they have tended to be very expensive.

Colorvision has come to the rescue with a sophisticated solution that does not cost an arm and a leg. It consists of a colorimeter, called a Monitor Spyder, and software to operate it. The Spyder is a two-inch circular colorimeter that fits snugly onto the monitor screen with three suction cups. It contains eight silicon photodetectors and seven filtered sensors, which enable it to obtain an accurate reading of the colors emitted by the monitor.

The Spyder is attached to the computer via a USB cable. The Optical program instructs one what to do as it goes through a series of monitor checks. At the appropriate time it instructs the user to attach the Spyder on a certain spot on the monitor. It then proceeds to change the colors and run through several different shades of gray to produce a custom ICC profile. This profile is then saved by the computer and used automatically every time the computer is booted up. It also alerts users at predetermined times that the monitor needs to be checked.

I ran the program on three different monitors, two on my G4 Mac and one on a PC, and was able to get them matched closer than I ever managed using the naked eye and correction methods included with programs such as Photoshop. The next step, once I have a decent flatbed scanner, is to produce some prints and scan them back in and use another program called Profiler RGB to produce ICC profiles for the Epson 1280 printer. Then, hopefully, I can get close to the holy grail of having the image on the monitor match the one produced by the printer.

For an outlay of $399 one can get a decent colorimeter and Optical software that allows one to adjust monitors by numbers instead of by eye. A less expensive version uses a simpler program called PhotoCal. Unlike Optical, which will work with a variety of colorimeters, Photocal only works with the Colorvision Spyder.

Real World Adobe Photoshop 6 is an excellent book for learning techniques to get the best color from images.

Real World Adobe Photoshop
As you can tell from my preceding remarks on the Colorvision Monitor Spyder, the management of color is still a black art. I, like many photographers, find it somewhat confusing and frustrating at times. There are many books and websites that offer some help. One of these books is Real World Adobe Photoshop 6, which has recently been published by Peachpit Press. Of all the books I’ve read this is perhaps the most comprehensive one to cover color management and show how to achieve desired results. What’s more it is written in an easy to read style that makes it more understandable to those of us who don’t have a degree in color technology. In this 787 page book no less than 252 pages are devoted to the adjustment of colors using levels and curves, etc. It also tells one how to modify colors and the look of an image in Photoshop. In my opinion if you’re new to Photoshop and computers you’re better off buying this book than spending the money on more equipment. Once you’ve mastered the concepts of what needs to be done, then the other tools, such as Colorvision’s Spyder can help achieve good results.

John Rettie is a photojournalist residing in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 31 years, a computer for 21 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past eight years. Readers can contact him at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.