Olympic Games are approaching and - for that reason - we invite you to the discovery of Beijing by Tamas Varga and to previous Olympic Villages by our unfatigable train traveller Willy Kaemena, meanwhile exploring PanAmerican Games by Ayrton and Andréa Camargo and UEFA EURO 2008, shot by Werner Weber.

Follow Dirk Kik in his search for megaliths, and Zbooy in his dwelling in the military cemeteries of Cracow. Otherwise, turn Vrmag's pages to find yourself in Scotland where - in the panos taken by Bill Ward and Will Pearson - you'll have the chance to admire the tributes to Tommy Burns, the Falkirk Wheel and Cullen Pet Cemetery.

Bubbles are becoming everyday more important in the world of design: to understand it, just jump to the articles about the curious Panobrella and the Panolampe, but do not forget to discover the plusses of a Multimedia Postcard too.

Oxygen plays an important role in the mechanisms of our memory, after having read about it, you could be tempted to try solving one of the several platonic solid enigmas, frozen in Vladimir Popov's panoramic images. Dwell carefully from a place to another, since Marco Luethi shows you the dangers of falling cameras.

With PangeaVR panoramic images can finally be seen on every iPhone G3. We invite you to the discovery of the application and, for the industry side, we advise you to read about World's Panoramic Stock. John Houghton teaches to beginners the secrets of stitching with PTGui and Andrew Magill shows anybody how it is possible to paint in 360° with his Orientation aware camera.

In the guest artist you will find the same outstanding photographers you met in issue 30: the duo Wright & George, Dennis Martin, Will Pearson and Timothée Eisenegger. We thought that they did not receive enough attention in the last number of VRMAG, because of its Mach 5...speed.

You'll find this and much more in VRMAG issue 31: as always - from A to Z we covered the world: let be tempted and chose from the menu where you want to spend the holidays, by exploring them from your...sofa first.

You're just a click away from enjoying the new VRMAG issue!

Your VRMag team

To read the full article, please follow this link.

To go to the main VR MAG site, please click here.

What will you discover within VRMAG?

First of all, our special coverage: Speed Racer. Speed Racer is the most expansive use of VR's in cinema history. In its pages, VRMAG hosts contents and interviews which directly come from Hollywood. Award winning special effects guru John Gaeta (Matrix trilogy) takes you behind the scenes and the film making of Speed Racer, in a walkthrough loaded with explicative contents, such as 3D animations, bubbles and CGIs. His team - and namely Dennis Martin, Lubo Hristow and Jake Morrison - take you in in-depth coverages on the ways to create a poptimistic photo anime, which sets a new tread for VR industry and is set to become a new benchmark for all future film production.

360Icon, with its panoramas of abandoned places is another great example on how a virtual experience can go beyond reality's limits: extreme HDR allows you to see more than your eyes could in everyday life. Grasp the colors that your brain does not usually process!

The world seen from the sky is always a breathtaking view. For that reason, Bernd Dohrmann, Tabb Firchau, Scott Haefner showcase their best shots, to confirm Leonardo Da Vinci's famouse quote that "For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return". Probably he did not take into account that the humankind would have then overshot the atmosphere...We did, and either the NASA or Yoshito Takagi takes you within the modules of ISS and MIR.

Something should be noted here: since we care about pollution, we'd like to inform you that Scott Haefner kite is - as the name implies - a zero emission..."transport mode". On the same wave, Tabb Firchaus's RC heli doesn't leave any carbon imprint, given that it is powered by lithium batteries!...And if you're packing your luggage to explore the world, ask Willy Kaemena about the best trains to jump into: you do not need to go by car!

Our columnist Pat St. Clair reviews the ultimate stitcher Stitcher Autopano Pro while Michel Thoby explains how to create a pano head out of your toolbox.

Looking for romantic skies? Look no more. Bernd again, did shot the one. Wondering what you teeth see? Wonder no more. Dr. Riley has the answer. Otherwise, check Paul Stewart's site to get advices on the cruises along the Mekong. Geoffrey Morelle will accompany you to the art exhibitions which take place inside a swimming pool.

Are you in search of dramatic experiences? Your adrenaline will rush with Tristan Shu's action packed images, and with Aloha Dean's scuba diving missions. And you know what? You've just been invited to a wedding, which has immortalized by Mike Jensen (and no, you do not have to stay for hours long dinners!)...

Sarah Kenderdine talks about the Eye of the Nagaur, a pioneering interactive digital multimedia installation made with state of the art photographic and visualisation technologies.

In this issue we have 4 outstanding guest artists:

The duo Wright-George, who created - with its Godin's sphere - what we consider as being a breakthrough in the field of immersive visual concept art. As well, enjoy Will Pearson's transfiguration of the commonplaces while Timothée Eisenegger takes you on a world trip in VR and finally Dennis Martin, one of the world's leading expert on using spherical photography in virtual locations for movies, talks about his Speed Racer experience: shooting 10'000 panos in 6 months.

VR Industry:

Since when Zoomify VR was discontinued, we were waiting to know the possibilities that KRPano is offering: we had a conversation with Klaus its developer, to discover that...Henning Kramer talks about the MKpanomachine and Roberto Mancuso shares his tutorial on the Quick Pan Professional.

On the technical side, we updated VRMAG's media viewer, which now delivers Flash VR to non QT systems, and we added comments below the articles. Oh yes, we hope to see lots of them ;-)

For the first time, you'll see ads on VRMAG. Be indulgent, since this fact has 2 reasons: first the steadily increasing traffic (in order to guarantee worldwide fast viewing of the multimedia content of the articles we activated a CDS - content delivery system - which creates additional costs) and second we need to raise funds for an upcoming community project, that we'll launch in the next months.

... And don't forget to write us about your VR projects and ideas, VRMag is the right place to reach a wider audience. At the time I'm writing this newsletter we are linked from the homepages of BoingboingTV and Slashdot.org.

More explosive than ever, issue nr. 30 marks our jubilee. Are you ready to party?

You're just a click away from enjoying the new VRMAG issue!

Your
Marco Trezzini and the VRMAG team

Vrmag Issue 30 is online: http://www.vrmag.org ]]> http://vrmag.wordpress.com/?p=63 Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:17:22 +0000 vrway http://vrmag.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/may-1-on-vrmag-exclusive-speed-racer-coverage/ Exclusive coverage of Speed Racer the movie: you will be able to enter movie locations and scenes through immersive VR panoramas and explore the Mach 5 and 6 in detail. Featuring in depth interviews with award winning special effects guru John Gaeta, and his key FX team members Dennis Martin, Lubo Histrov , Euisung Lee, and Jake Morrison unveiling the secrets of Speed Racer. All articles are supported by images and videos.

Click here for the special speed racer splash page

We are in the middle of the IPY,The International Polar Year, which is a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009. IPY occurs amidst abundant evidence of changes in snow and ice, including reductions in extent and mass of glaciers and ice sheets, reductions in area, timing, and duration of snow cover, and reductions in extent and thickness of sea ice. The observations and modeling of IPY will document and quantify the extent, rate and impact of snow and ice changes and their integrated impact on global sea level.

So I thought that it would be nice that VRMAG pays a homage to this joint effort through the panoramas and words of a group of very different and special man creating outstanding panoramas related to the theme ice. You will be standing on glacier summits, get inside them, meet ice bears, experience northern lights and much more.

Jordi Clariana, takes you on 2 weeks photographic expedition to the Svalbard Island; a tourist if seen from Witek Katzskin's perspective, since he lives and works at the Horsund polish Polar station located on the island; Dr Matt Nolan studying the impacts of climate change on the arctic landscape; Rodion Galanev travelling to Karelia, called the region of thousands lakes, created by the melting of the glaciers which covered the region during ice age; Werner Weber, capturing the St Moritz White Turf Horse race, Jean-Pierre Lavoie, Quebec City, shooting the Red Bull Crashed Ice skating competition; Keiji Yokotani, taking you to the Shikotsu Ice festival in Japan; Yvan Van Hoorickx invites you to the indoor Snow & Ice Sculpture Festival in Bruges; Tabb Firchau, shooting from a RC helicopter partially frozen Green Lake in Seattle Washington... as well as links to a series of previously published ice related articles.

Since we believe Love is the most important thing on this planet, we'll take you to Paris where you have very special new ways to say "I love you" to your dearest; to Berlin at Lifeball, celebrating universal love to raise funds to fight aids; to Mali, to see the efforts of Médecins Sans Frontières fighting malaria; to Molokai, Hawaii, to meet father Damien a charismatic and compassionate caregiver.

For our "inside" series this time you will be able to enter a dishwasher, a sports shoe, a halloween pumpkin, as well as enter a Avro vulcan cockpit, a Nascar race truck, get into Ratatuilles Kitchen, and finally view the inside of a fridge with a very special model, the vegetarian turtle "Iso".

In addition we'll take you the Highland games in Scotland, explore the palaces of european monarchy, visit Turkey's fastest growing panorama resource, take a day trip to Dubai, see Lauren dancing, visit Carhenge, explore wooden churches in Poland, and join Ignacio hanging at 230 meters from the ground.

And yes, also VRMAG's team has it's weaknesses, so we'll get into politics showing you panoramas of Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Ron Paul, as well as some topless girls on a beach in Brasil.

Our guest artist for this issue is Henry Stuart who shares the secrets of his success; Greg Downing describes how he created 270 gigapixel images in 3 1/2 months and shows a series of breathtaking gigapixel images, our columnist Pat St Clair reviews the HDR software Hydra, while Jook Leung announces his new workshop in Maine.

Get to know better Denis Chumakov, the creator of Flash Panorama Player, Alexandre Jenny, co-creator of Autopano Pro. Michael Thoby talks about Enfuse for night photography while Jeffrey informs about the 2008 Panotools meeting in Prague he's organizing.

Your
Marco Trezzini

CLICK HERE TO DISCOVER ISSUE 29 OF VRMAG

The inauguration of "Valentino a Roma: 45 Years of Style” was held at the Museum of Ara Pacis in Rome.
The exhibit of 300 dresses and rare archival materials, celebrating the 45 years of creativity of Valentino - through a spectacular staging - put Rome - once again - at the centre of international fashion and glamour.

Please click here to view the full VRMAG article VALENTINO AT RICHARD MEIER'S ARA PACIS MUSEUM IN ROME with interactive panoramas.

World Heritage Site St. Basil's Cathedral, the wall of the Kremlin, the mausoleum, the state Historical Museum and the Gum shot by Andrey Ilyin.

Please click here to view the full VRMAG article RED SQUARE MOSCOW with interactive panoramas

Thanks John ;-)

When Aldo saw the body wash setup, he immediately knew he had to shoot a panorama from the inside.

Please click here to view the full VRMAG articleTO BE IN A BUBBLE PARTY AT SZIGET 2007 with interactive panoramas

Issue 28 stats:

45 articles.

Contributing writer:
Aldo Hoeben
Andras Frenyo
Boštjan Burger
Danica Gianola
Jim Spadaccini
Ms. Larramie
Marco Trezzini
Matthias Taugwalder
Pat St. Clair
Robert C. Fisher
Yuval Levi

Contributing photographer:
Aldo Hoeben
Andras Frenyo
Andrey Ilying
Bostjan Burger
Bradford Bohonus
Carel Struycken
Giuseppe Pennisi
Henry Stuart
Hiroharu Shizuya
Ignacio Ferrando
Jook Leung
Joop Greypink
Johnny Vaccaro
Jose M. Requena
Krisztina Imre
Marcin Mroz
Markus Krueger
Matthias Taugwalder
Patrick Cheatham
Pat St Clair
Robert Serra
Robert C. Fisher
Roberto Gomez Torres
Roberto Kressner
Gene Cooper
Naomi Cooper
Simon Puckl
Takeshi Suzuki
John E. Kroll
Yoshiyuki Kaneko
Yuval Levi

Featuring a new way to access the articles, while you will still be able to select the simplified homepage and the interactive fullsceen homepage.

... coming soon ...

Text: Michelle Bienias
Photo: Michel Thoby

Step inside photographer Michel Thoby’s Fridge.

Please click here to view the full VRMAG article WHAT’S IN YOUR FRIDGE? with interactive panoramas