Pano2QTVR

A very new and real promising Windows project by Thomas Rauscher to convert equirectangular and cylindrical panos to QuickTime cubic movies and link them together to virtual tours.

Features for the free version until now (18 Sept 2005):

• converting equirectangular and cylindiric images to QTVR (.mov files).
• converting equirectangular to single cube face files (either JPEG or TIFF)
• setting of PTStitcher interpolator and interpolator gamma for cube face creation
• cube face creation with an optional external JPEG compressor
• assembling single cube face files into a QTVR (.mov file)
• creating hotspots in an internal hotspot editor using various forms (round, elliptic, rectangle, rounded rectangle, polygon)
• setting of most (if not all?) QTVR parameters like f.e. pan, tilt and Field of View defaults and limits, title, description, author, date and time, copyright, source, comment...

Added features in version 0.9.2 (30. Sept. 2005)

• Added sprites before the panorama, becoming visible immediately

Added features in version 0.9.8.0 (5. Feb. 2006)

• Object Movies (single- and multi row)
• HTML-Templates
• Thumbnail creation
• Droplets that can process multiples files

The commercial pro version is also able to add additional tracks like autorotator, sound files, images, Flash movies and other sprites.

Pano2QTVR page: http://www.pano2qtvr.com/

The interface is no-frills and easy to grasp in a single sitting. I was able to put together a 7 image tour with multiple links in under 30 minutes, and that was the first time using the program. See it here: http://www.add360.com/archangels/virtual_tours/tour-quicktime/image2.mov

The software offers links to internal images, external webpages and tooltips.