Sophia Antipolis, France - RealViz, developer of image processing software, has announced the availability of its VTour software on the Macintosh platform. RealViz VTour, which launched in March of this year, draws on the award-winning technology of Stitcher and ImageModeler, and enables users of all levels to create photoreal 3D environments from 2D pictures or panoramas.
VTour has been specifically developed for use in a wide range of applications, such as virtual walkthroughs, 3D simulation, virtual reality, urban planning, and video games, and is also well suited for the creation of virtual sets for film and television.
Starting directly from digital photographs, or from full 360-degree panoramas (created using Stitcher, for example), VTour facilitates the creation of 3D scenes such as interiors or urban areas using polygonal photo-textured primitives.
The results can be exported/published as either a 3D movie, or as an interactive application using 3D viewers such as SPi-V3d viewer (based on Shockwave). VTour also enables the creation of geo-referenced 3D scenes for Google Earth. 3D environments, virtual tours, and other photorealistic material created with VTour can be directly exported and published in Google Earth, pin-pointing exact geographical positioning, courtesy of the Google Earth 3D viewer.
Version 1.1 of VTour enables users to create stunning photorealistic Web content of only a few megabytes in size. Project file sizes can be reduced by a ratio of 2 to 3, without any resulting loss of quality. Texture compression quality can also be edited for even greater control.
Version 1.1 includes an updated SPi-V3d viewer, for improved compatibility with Macintosh computers. The SPi-V3d viewer was developed for use with VTour by fieldOfView as an extension to their SPi-V engine, a versatile viewer technology focused on interactive panoramas. The viewer combines the panorama viewing and interactivity features of the SPi-V engine with the unique ability to step outside the center of the panoramic image offered by VTour. The SPi-V 3D player allows VTour users to instantly explore the 3D models exported by the application as Shockwave 3D files, and offer the same experience to a wider audience as well.
VTour 1.1 also offers an export to Autodesk Maya (from version 6.0) for a complete integration in the most widely used 3D production chains. This feature offers the following benefits:
-- It exports camera, 3D models, textures, 3D points, coordinate system,
environment maps
-- It automatically provides the necessary Maya hierarchy for the exported data
-- It automatically creates an environment map from the original spherical panorama
-- It provides the MEL script to help the creation of multi-environment
projects
VTour is available in English for Windows and Macintosh at a price point of $580 US.
