Heage Windmill VR Tour, practical example of a useful tour.

[centreofengland]

Heage Windmill mini VR tour
Click here for the Heage Windmill mini VR tour.

Heage Windmill in Derbyshire, U.K. is the only working 6 sailed stone tower mill in Britain, The windmill became operational in 1797.
In 1997 after years of neglect the Heage windmill society was formed, with an aim to bring the mill back to working order.
This windmill was opened to the public on the 1st June 2002.
In 2006 I was asked if could create a 360 degree photograph inside the cap of the mill so that visitors to the windmill could see what goes on in the cap (general public are not allowed in the cap for safety reasons).
Back then I created two 360 degree photographs for them to display on a stand alone pc at the mill. I entered one of those views on the World Wide Panorama website :
World Wide Panorama - Best of 2006.

In 2008/2009 I bought new camera equpment and offered to create a virtual tour of the mill by using the hotspot feature in the Pano2Vr software. I created the tour over a few months, learning how to use Pano2vr along the way.

The complete high resolution tour constisting of 26 360x180 degree photographs is only available to view by visiting the windmill but as a side project I also created a mini (cut down) version of the virtual tour for their website which you can see here.

Heage Windmill mini VR tour
Click here for the Heage Windmill mini VR tour.

It consists of 6 360x180 degree photographs which can be slected either from the main plan map or by following hotspots within the tour. The tour is aimed at the general public so I wanted the interface to be simple so I opted for a "html mapped" image map rather than a sliding flash map.

I have used an IFRAME ticker to show helpful text messages below the 360 panoramas and also the plan map.

You will notice that information boxes pop up when you hover over certain items within the mill telling you what they are.

My virtual tour won the Judges Special Award in the Renaissance East Midlands Derbyshire Heritage Awards 2009.
"For an innovative solution to providing access to the mill, delivered by volunteers, to a very high standard."

Read more about the award here on my blog :
Heage Windmill wins Award.

I hope you enjoy my mini tour and please do visit the windmill if you get chance, its run by a small group of dedicated volunteers who will take you on a real tour around the windmill so you can see it working.

For more informaton on this mill such as opening times please visit their website:
Heage Windmill website.

I really enjoyed creating the virtual tour for them and learnt a lot about windmills during my many visits.

P.S. If you visit the windmill you will be able to see one of the panoramas which I actualy took on the top of the roof of the mill which gives you a great view across Derbyshire.

Thanks
Andy Savage

[jobes]

Hi

This looks really nice. However I notice that the controls seem inverted to the usual manner: eg if you click and drag left on the panorama, it actually moves right. I found this a bit confusing, but was wondering if you'd had real-world feedback from users in the windmill to suggest this is a more intuitive approach?

cheers

[centreofengland]

Hi
This looks really nice. However I notice that the controls seem inverted to the usual manner: eg if you click and drag left on the panorama, it actually moves right.cheers

Hi, Yes the "usual manner" is only something that us regular panorama people know as "normal" after years of using 360 degree photographs.
But most people that have used google streetview would say "our normal" is backwards. I was asked by several people to make the control this way. i.e. the same control method thats used by google streetview.
If you are not familure with google streetview then click the link and drag the view around....
http://tinyurl.com/yj5deu6

[360Texas]

Hmm interesting. Until I saw this... I was not aware of the mouse / rotation handling.

[Hopki]

I think it’s quite cool , fantastic for touch screen.
Good one
Hopki

[centreofengland]

One thing that was noticed when watching people use the tour in its "normal mode" was that people were clicking and then moving the mouse to the far edge of the screen, of couse when you do that the view rotates wildly out of control until you let go. This was one of the reasons for me changing it to the "click n drag" method of control because if someone clicks and moves the mouse to the far edge of the screen then it just moves the view that amount and stops, thus making it obvious whats going on.

To turn your viewer into the "click n drag" mode, in P2VR with a Flash mode generated output. Go into the Settings and then the Advanced Settings tab and for Mouse/Keyboard: Tick Invert control and for Mouse Wheel: tick Invert.
then generate your flash to see this new control method. It will now behave the same as Google Streetview.

Initially I did not get on with this method of control but thats only because I'm used to 10 years of working with Quicktime 360s, on reflection this control method does make more sense and clearly is better for general public use.

Andy