Core functionality demos

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Foggy grasslands

Morning comes in a wet and foggy grassland. See the subtle licks of fog.

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Adaptive Dynamic Range

Two 3rd party Adaptive Dynamic Range scenes. Panoramic images courtesy Mark D. Fink and Greg Downing.

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Timelapse

Watch as an hovercraft arrives at the Isle of Wight terminal.

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Focal Blur

Added realism in a panoramic scene by limiting the depth of field of the virtual camera.

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Gallery metamorphosis

Watch as this gallery goes through a metamorphosis as you look around.

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Dune tour

Two node tour showcasing a toolbar and branding elements. Notice the smooth transparencies.

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Hirshhorn Tour

A more elaborate tour consisting of 7 nodes, a floorplan with compasses, etc. The works.

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Guided zoom

The viewer automatically zooms in and out to show either detail or atmosphere.

Extensions

The SPi-V engine was designed to offer the best experience and set of features for panoramic imaging, but the SPi-V engine can be extended beyond this core functionality.

These extensions are often one-offs, specifically tailored for certain content. Some of the features will trickle into the core of SPi-V as it develops to future versions.

 

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Space Needle, Seattle

Hovering outside Seattle's main landmark. Combines a panoramic background with realtime 3d graphics.

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Splitscreen view from the Euromast, Rotterdam

A combination of two panoramic images taken in summer and winter time.

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Cubic reprojection

This extension projects the interactive panorama back onto six cubic faces, in realtime.

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Cylindrical reprojection

This extension projects the interactive panorama back onto a unrolled cylinder, in realtime.

Legacy demos

The following demos are part of the legacy of SPi-V; these are some of the original demos that started SPi-V as it is now. They contain some features that are not yet available in the current version of SPi-V (such as animated elements and 3d objects).

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Chit chat

This lady just keeps on talking... (no audio)
The fully alpha channeled avatar is a 15 second loop. She is composited in realtime on an alternating panoramic background.

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Boardwalk exhaust in Washington DC

It's not just in the movies, there really is smoke coming from underground in the US.
Features characteristic animated billowing smoke.

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Jeremy Allaire lectures on MX

This demo includes excerpts of Jeremy Allaire's presentation of the MX series of products. We would like to thank Macromedia for their permission to use the video stream.

SPi-V engine

SPi-V* is a hardware accelerated panoramic viewing engine. The engine is based on a solid and extensible multimedia core provided by Adobe's Shockwave 3D. When launched in 2004 it was the first publicly available, cross-platform, 3d hardware accelerated panorama viewer.

*: SPi-V is pronounced "spiffy" and is short for Shockwave Panorama Viewer.

Feature highlight

  • High fidelity, antialiased graphics
  • Full screen, silky smooth navigation
  • Fully interactive userinterface and hotspot capabilities
  • Higly customisable branding options
  • Full, 8 bit transparency support
  • Compatible with Microsoft Windows (98 and up) and Apple MacOS (9.X and OSX)

SPi-V can be used both online and offline; in a webbrowser, integrated in a presentation or played back inside the standalone SPi-V viewer application. When used online, SPi-V benefits from the existing player adoption for Shockwave. Offline things look even better, as no install is necessary to run the SPi-V standalone viewer off a CD. Even though SPi-V is capable of displaying exciting new effects inside panoramic scenes hardware requirements are low, allowing a wide audience to enjoy engaging content.

System requirements

  • Macromedia Shockwave version 8.5 or newer plugin (for online viewing only)
  • Hardware accelerated 3d card (16 Mb Video RAM, 32 Mb or more recommended)
  • Display set to 32 bit for best performance

Authoring

For its panoramic scenes and virtual tours, SPi-V uses XML files which reference (graphic) media files. Similar to HTML - the bricks that make up internet pages - XML files are text based, meaning they are easy to adjust in any simple text editor. Content creators will find a treasure of information about the SPi-V XML specification, as well as a means to communicate with me and other members of the SPi-V community at SPi-V dev, the content developer's website.

The SPi-V engine can be downloaded from the SPi-V developers site, and can be used free of charge.

02/28/2003

First version of Space Needle demo shown online
10/11/2003

SPi-V shown at the IQTVRA Summit in Washington DC
04/19/2004

Private beta of a fully rewritten SPi-V
11/22/2004

Release of SPi-V 1.0 to the public