3.04.00 – Virtual Tours

Client : Combat Air Museum, Topeka, Kansas

Objective

The development of high quality virtual tour assets to complement the museum’s online materials / website.

Hardware

After some initial evaluation of alternative capture methods, I adopted the Spheron SceneCam as the most reliable, consistently performing solution.

Primary Software

Spheron Image Processor – used to convert the native .SPH file into a 32-bit radiance file (HDR).

Photomatix Pro – Used to tonemap the HDR image. It converts the full 32-bit raw Spheron image file down to a standard 8-bit Jpeg/Tiff image file (this jpeg file is then used here in a standard HTML web browser for your review.

Note – the full 32-bit raw Spheron image file may be viewed directly in the Spheron viewer applications including their SceneCenter software.

Virtual Tours

Below is a list of the tours completed so far. Its an interesting challenge, as one needs to work with visitors walking through your shots quite regularly (which is not an issue, as Spheron captures can be paused).

The physical hangar space varies from well-lit to quite dark, compounded by high contrast scenarios and reflective surfaces.

Given I am working on other projects for the museum, these captures are happening ‘ad hoc’ (as opposed to a ‘blitz’ on capturing it all in one go).

VT Tour List

Planned VT Shooting List

  • 602 hangar – main visitor hangar
  • 604 hangar – restoration hangar

Once the museum’s hangar lighting is updated, we will shot the main 602 hangar with more general VT images. This is not because we need more lighting, but more to avoid re-shooting the hangar when new lighting is installed (February / March 2017)