I’ve started compiling a list of available VR viewers to display VR photography online and offline.

The list is updated regularly. If you know a VR viewer that is not listed, write me a comment and tell me about it.

This is a recurring question for all independent professionals, especially VR photographers. There is no right or wrong answer here.

I know it is impossible in Egypt to convince a client that charging him/her by the hour is better and is cheaper for him/her and then you must understand my fears that if I give a flat rate for a project, some clients tend to think it includes unlimited number of photography days, creating a website around the VR photos and picking up their children from school at the end of the day.

What I do is that after I get a brief about the project, I calculate how much time is needed to photograph, photo-edit and produce the VR images, multiply that to my guideline hourly rate (running costs + equipment cost + my salary / how many days a year I expect to work) and i get an estimate on how much the project will cost. I send the estimate as a figure (don’t break it down) and write down what they are getting for this amount. Transportation and meals are not included in the estimate and is always quoted seperately.

I read an article about charging by the project versus by the hour which included the following text:

Legend has it that Pablo Picasso was sketching in the park when a bold woman approached him. “It’s you — Picasso, the great artist! Oh, you must sketch my portrait! I insist.”

So Picasso agreed to sketch her. After studying her for a moment, he used a single pencil stroke to create her portrait. He handed the women his work of art.

“It’s perfect!” she gushed. “You managed to capture my essence with one stroke, in one moment. Thank you! How much do I owe you?”

“Five thousand dollars,” the artist replied.

“B-b-but, what?” the woman sputtered. “How could you want so much money for this picture? It only took you a second to draw it!”

To which Picasso responded, “Madame, it took me my entire life.”

The complete article is worth reading.

I’ve been asked by iPIX developers, photographers and producers of what to do after their iPIX software expires. My suggestion is not to wait until then.  There are no software that I’m aware of that can convert the iPIX images to jpeg format (equirectangular).  So now is the time to look for alternatives.

The International Virtual Reality Photography Association (IVRPA) has a comprehensive list of software and hardware to help you photograph, stitch and display your 360˚ virtual tours. There are also friendly forums to help VR photographers of all levels of knowledge with both technical and marketing tips: IVRPA forum, Apple’s QTVR forum and Pantools NG yahoo group.

feel free to click the comment link below if you have any other questions.

1- Talent is one-third of the success equation.
It is important but so is hard work and luck. And even if you are not talented but you focus on hard work and luck, you’ll make it big. Hard work means self discipline and sacrifice. Luck is knowing the right people, having money and timing.

2- 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
Creativity in VR photography if I can calculate in time would be 20 minutes needed per day. The rest is carrying the heavy tripod, negotiating with clients, transfering files to your computer, paying taxes and other things you wish was not part of the job. Love these little, boring and stupid part of your profession and do them on time and carefully and you will succeed.

3- If everything is equally important, then nothing is very important.
There are always priorities that need to be done now and not later. You can always re-organize your hard disk later or redesign a new fax template on your weekend. Write down what needs to be done, high-light the ones that need to be finished this week and start with things that needed to be completed today.
4- Don’t over-think a problem.
We are naturally obsessive. Since we are into details we like to come up with comprehensive ways to solve our problems. But don’t waste your time, if it needs a band-aid then stick it on it and move on.

5- Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns.
If the clients requires you deliver the work in a format you haven’t used before, don’t worry. Get the job, photograph the locations, stitch, edit, optimize and then look online for a solution. Start with what you know.
6- Don’t forget your goal.
Don’t waste your effort because of fear of the unknown. You have a mission statement, right? No. Then right one. You should know where you are now and where you want to be in 6 months and 1 year. Time will pass quickly, you should have goals.

7- When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance.
Overconfidence is as bad as no confidence. Realize and accept your ignorance, then work hard to educate yourself out of it. Ask questions.

8- The road to hell is paved with good intentions; or, no good deed goes unpunished.
Having a brilliant product to sell like VR photography does not you will succeed. People are used to see and understand average and predictable products. Because the world does not depend on brilliance or innovation. If it is brilliant most people will not understand it or appreciate it. It will be an challange and require enormous effort for you to succeed.

9- It all comes down to output.
I fall in this trap from time to time. VR Photographers produce VR photos, so how many did you produce today, this week or this month. It is fine to try to research how to improve your workflow but the only way to improve your work is to produce what you say you produce.

10- The rest of the world counts.
If you hope to accomplish anything, you’ll need everybody you know to help you. No matter how good your VR photos are, they need to be seen on a webpage or a presentation. You need clients, you need web developers, you need people to talk about your work, you need to support you emotionally. Respect those people. You need them. Big time.

Let me first start by defining what a favicon is: It is the small icon displayed in your web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera) next to the URL in the address bar. Mine used to look like this:

I made when I had a Windows PC and I felt it was time to get rid of this one - like I got rid of my Windows PC

First thing you need to do is choose an image. Photographs don’t work, because the favicon are displayed in a very small size that no one will be able to see the details. Simple logos always work or you can get ideas from Peerbot, a favicon search engine.

Open the image in Photoshop (or your favourite image editor) and reduce the image size (Photoshop: ‘Image’ menu) to 16 pixels by 16 pixels and save a copy. Open the original image again, and re-resize the image down to 32 x 32 pixels, and save another copy. Open the original image again (for the last time, I promise) and resize the image down to 48×48, and save a third copy.

Now download IcoMaker. A totally FREE software for Mac OS X, Thank you Mr. Takeshi Ogihara. After installing the programme and starting it, select “File -> new document”. A small multi-paned window will appear with six small windows. Select “File -> Include Image…” and choose one image at a time: 16 pixel first. A dialog box will appear giving you the option to choose between 256 or 16 colours. My suggestion is to keep it at 256. click ok. Repeat with the 32 and 48 pixel images. Now select “File -> Save” and name it favicon. Now you have 1 favicon.ico file which includes your 16, 32,48 pixel image.

Use your favourite FTP programme (I use Cyberduck) and upload your favicon.ico file on your webserver root directory.

Then add this line of HTML to the all your webpages, in between your HEAD tag.

link rel=”shortcut icon” xhref=”/favicon.ico” mce_href=”/favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon” /

Now load your website and you will see your new favicon. Sometimes you need to press the web browser ‘Refresh’ button a couple of times for the favicon to appear.

This is a God send for all VR photographers/producers who write their own HTML code or boss someone else to do it. You can see how the code for your VR images will display on all existing browsers known to man (and woman ofcourse). And it is outrageously FREE!

Browsershots allows you to test for screen resolution, colour depth, javascript, java, flash and many media plugins.

UPDATE - 28th June 2006: Being for free does not mean you’ll get results of this website. I only got 1 result after 5 attempts using this website. There is the longest queue of websites that are being tested.

UPDATE - 6th July 2006: They fixed it.  Even if there is a long queue, now you can ’search’ for your website screenshots.  Take a look at my page.

Browsershots.org is a GREAT tool!

I made changes to MADEENA360 website a few days ago to adjust to Microsoft’s decision to change how Internet Explorer browser displays QuickTime, Flash, Shockwave, Java and other content. Internet Explorer would show a warning message that the webpage have active content and would always ask for your approval to display it. Microsoft explains it here. Imagine the hassle and the extra clicks a web visitor would go through.

People like me who produce interactive content would have to adjust their HTML code in each webpage that uses QuickTime, Flash, Shockwave and Java content. It is a rather manual process but it has to be done. And for people who are not very good in HTML, don’t worry, I am HTML-code challanged and was able to do it.

I’ll lead you to links that explain how to do the changes yourself:

QuickTime:

http://developer.apple.com/internet/
ieembedprep.html

Flash & Shockwave:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/activecontent/
articles/devletter.html

Java:

http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/
J2SE/Desktop/ieappletguide/index.html

If you are using a Mac computer (OS X) and have BBEdit (HTML code editor), there is an applescript that automatically does all the necessary changes:

http://www.barebones.com/products/
bbedit/embedtag.shtml