Thursday, February 12, 2004

iPIX announced the iPIX Interactive Studio today, an interoperable platform for panoramic workflow supporting plug-in development by partners. iPIX InfoMedia also announced a strategic alliance with iseemedia Inc. iseemedia will support the iPIX Interactive Studio with iseemedia's PhotoVista Panorama plug-in, IVR format and java viewer technology. RealViz is a partner, and it looks like there is a plug-in available supporting the QuickTime file format. "A flexible plug-in architecture and strong technology partners enable the iPIX Interactive Studio platform to offer customers an expanded range of panorama photography capture modes, including single row multi-shot panoramas and multi-shot full-frame fisheye not previously available from iPIX." They also changed their licensing model to provide unlimited annual licensing. The Interactive Studio will be available for OS X and Windows, and costs $899 for an annual license of the Essentials Pack, or $1799 for the Enhanced Pack. It looks like the Essentials Pack can accept as input fisheye or flat images, then stitching either type of images, and supports iPIX viewers only; while the Enhanced Pack can accept input for bubble projection, cube face images, equirectangular projection, fisheye, flat images and QuickTime Cubic Panoramas, and supports QuickTime output. The Enhanced Pack also has image editing and filter tools. And they have some upgrade packs to get from the base level to the Enhanced Pack. The CreativeMac story (first link) states that "The company has also collaborated with RealViz for the creation of a fish-eye lens stitching plugin for the suite". One reason for this collaboration is that iPIX's existing fisheye stitcher handled two, three or four 8mm shots, while RealViz's plugin could stitch more shots (and perhaps different lenses as well). The software does not currently support adding hotspots to a VR that link to a URL or other scene, but could add support via a plugin. It does support outputting VR in formats that can be displayed with PTviewer. In fact Joe Ortiz at iPIX talks about the Java player PTviewer like it's a perfectly acceptable option for their customers, implying a new attitude towards Helmut Dersch. The yearly licensing agreement does not affect any VRs produced with the software -- those would continue to function even if the software license expired. Also, if a VR tour photographer had a one-time project, they could negotiate a shorter license timeframe than one year, resulting in a proportionally reduced price. Interestingly RealViz also has an Interactive Studio product, but it appears to have no relationship to the partnership or iPIX's Interactive Studio. Seems like plenty of potential for confusion on product names. In listening to VR photographers at various industry forums, moving to a new pricing model and striking up partnerships with other VR companies, iPIX is attempting to redefine itself. Update: The KnoxNews.com has a long article explaining the new strategy. 7:00:05 AM

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