Hi there,
This is a rather long message, but deals with an opporunity for a skilled java
coder to tap
into a market niche of 360-degree lens which included (outdated) Java based
software.
I recently bought a 360-degree lens from French firm Egg Solution.
This sells for about $450 at Amazon.com, and allows creating 3D
Panoramas with a single shot.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001LNG2VG?ie=UTF8&tag=showitem06-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001LNG2VG
Basically the lens installs on any compatible camera (with the right adapter
ring)
and it features a reflective cone-shaped surface inside the lens that distorts
the image to reflect the 360-degreees around it.
Then, a software program takes that distorted image and builds a "3D panorama"
that can be
seen online. The advantage of this is that with a single shot, and a single image, you get the 3D
panorama with no image stitching, no servos and no need to get a SLR camera with a 360-degree turn
device.
However, the main problem, to me at least, is that the image creation software
is Windows-based.
For viewer, Egg solution provides an ages-old (think Win2k timeframe) applet,
and due to customer
complaints about the lack of a Java plug-in in many people愀 IE installation,
they have
began providing a Flash based viewer too as of late.
See here for demos:
http://menaarkansas.us/tours/Mena_Street_ESSO/
http://www.newportbeachcondo.net/virtualtour/main.htm
The firm also provides -at an extra cost, a "Egg Video 360" software allowing
to shoot video witht
the 360-degree lens attached, and then display "3d video" that can be seen with
the
right RealPlayer plug-in installed.
Both the .egg still image and video formats are proprietary.
Looking around I found this Panorama Tools web page
http://www.all-in-one.ee/~dersch/
which lists several open source tools to manually stitch images and create
360-degree panoramas.
Along the files listed is a Java applet capable of displaying 3D panoramas, even those in Quicktime
VR format, and without the need to have Quicktime installed.
However, to my dismay it愀 a Java 1.x applet.
-----
PTViewer, free spherical Panorama Viewer. Small filesize, yet features high quality bilinear
rendering. Java version supports hotspots. Reads and displays Quicktime VR-files (panoramas and
objects) without the need for a Quicktime installation.
* Java Applet and Application Version 2.1 for Java 1.0.4 or above, includes
sources .
* Java Applet and Application Version 2.5 for Java 1.0.4 or above.
-----
Now, the bulk of the work is done by the LENS... so... Isn愒 this an opportunity
for
someone to create a great, 100% Pure Java desktop application that does the
required morphing of the bitmap and/or video, to create the destination files,
and then, create a top-notch Java based viewer both for 3D static panoramas and 3D video created
with these kind of lens?.
I悲 love to see something that makes use of the Java6u10 or JavaFX apis... for faster loading,
splash screen, and the like...
I think so... any takers?. YOu惻l only win fame and/or fortune... :)
FC
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