Interacting with QTVR using the Controller Bar and Key Commands

from QTVR for Educators and Just Plain Folks
by Mark Christal, University of Texas/4Directions

Place the mouse cursor in the movie and hold down the mouse button. The cursor changes from a bull's eye icon to an arrow icon that points in the direction you move the mouse. The pano scrolls in the direction you are moving the cursor, and moves faster the further you move the cursor with the mouse button down. If a line appears in front of the arrow cursor, it means you have reached the limit of scrolling in that direction.

You can also move the pano around using the arrow keys. The pano scrolls as if you were turning around using the left or right arrow buttons or looking up and down using the up and down arrow buttons.

You can zoom in and out of the pano by pressing the Zoom In and Zoom out buttons on the Controller bar. Also, pressing the Shift key will zoom in and pressing the Control key will zoom out.

Place the mouse cursor in the movie and hold down the mouse button. The cursor changes from an open hand icon to a closed hand icon. Moving the cursor with the mouse button down rotates the object in that direction. Depending on how the object movie was created, you may be able to rotate the object horizontally, vertically, or in both directions.
NOTE: Object movies may be shot in very creative ways. The progression of frames in either direction can be made to represent other concepts besides angular rotation--for instance, the passage of time or zooming.

You can also rotate the object using the arrow keys. The object rotates in the direction of the arrow key you press.

You can zoom in and out on the object by pressing the Zoom In and Zoom out buttons on the Controller bar. Also, pressing the Shift key will zoom in and pressing the Control key will zoom out.

If you are zoomed in on an object and you wish to see a part of the object which has gone out of the frame press the Drag Zoomed Object button so that it says down. When you hold the mouse button down over the movie you can drag the frame around in the window. To go back to rotating the object movie, click on the Drag Zoomed Object button again.

If you move the cursor to near the edge of the movie window with the mouse button up, it changes from a hand icon to an arrow icon. Holding down the mouse button at that time will rotate the object without having to move the mouse. If you move the mouse with the button down, the object rotates faster the further you move the cursor away from the object.

Hot spots are normally hidden regions on an QTVR panorama, object, or scene that can be programed to perform certain actions when clicked on or rolled over with the cursor.

The mouse cursor changes when it rolls over a hot spot and sometimes puts text in the Controller bar. An open arrow mouse icon ususally indicates that clicking will take you to another node in a QTVR scene movie. A finger on a world icon ususally indicates that clicking will launch a new web page or load another QTVR movie.

Clicking on the Show Hotspots button will cause the hot spots to reveal themselves. Double-clicking on the Show Hotspots button will cause it to stay down. The hot spots will remain revealed until you click on the Show Hotspots button again.

QTVR movies tend to have a comparatively large file size as far as web media goes, so downloading a full movie may take some time. However, QuickTime lets you see as much of a QTVR movie as possible as it downloads.

With object movies, you will see the first frame very quickly. You will then be able to rotate it a limited amount as more of it downloads. You can rotate it completely after the download is finished.

Some web developers will make their QTVR panos with "fast start" capability. With a "fast start" pano, a low resolution panorama will appear after a small percentage of the movie has downloaded. High resolution panels of the pano will be displayed as more of the movie downloads. Version 2 QTVR panos that are NOT fast start will initially display white-on-black grid that gets filled with the high resolution panels as the download proceeds.

Holding down the mouse button on a QTVR movie on a web page will cause a drop-box menu to appear with several options (such as "QuickTime Plug-in settings...", "About QuickTime Plug-in...", etc.). To prevent this menu from interfereing with your interaction, you will need to move the mouse quickly after pressing the mouse button to scroll a panorama or rotate an object.