HD View

HD View is a new viewer developed by Microsoft Researchs Interactive Visual Media group to aid in the interaction and display of very large images.
HD View is an ActiveX browser component, thus the first time you use it you will be asked to install the component.
Recent advances in camera and sensor technology and software for stitching images together has led to the creation of images containing billions of pixels (gigapixels).
These images are often panoramic, that is, they cover very wide fields of view. Since monitors typically contain only one to two million pixels, it is only possible to actually see 1/1000th of such image data at once.
Also, viewing very wide fields of view require unwrapping of an image projected onto a curved surface (think of a map of the world) which can cause distortions.
HD View was developed with a number of goals in mind. It should:
· Allow smooth panning and zooming on large images,
only download enough data to create the current view (and possibly look ahead to the next), and
· Always display the current field of view with an appropriate projection. This means that when zoomed way in you should be presented with a standard perspective projection providing a sense of immersion, and when zoomed out you experience a curved projection so that get a full overview of the scene. In between the projection should smoothly transition.
· Finally, it should be easy to create your own HD View content and present it to the world via the web.
HD View combines the perspective (immersive) viewing of panoramas found in QTVR and the flattened panning and zooming found in viewers such as Zoomify and mapping systems. The smooth interpolation between perspective and curved projections provides a unique viewing experience.System requirementsInternet Explorer
Firefox