Navigable movies: A Real QuickTime VR

Abstract:
This paper introduces a navigable movie player based upon the QuickTime API. Navigable does not mean (as in QuickTime VR) that one can only look around within a static image, rather one can navigate within a movie. A key application of this is to present interactive movie content not just on a flat screen but also within immersive displays, in particular, within hemispherical domes. As such the player supports a very general method of mapping the source movie projection geometry onto the geometry of the presentation hardware. The result is an abstraction of the details of the input movie geometry and the output image projection, the exact mapping and navigation mode is contained with a data file rather than within the movie player software itself. A description of the player will be presented along with details of the mapping between source and destination geometries, and finally a number of practical examples.