fieldOfView

fieldOfView announces the public availability of SPi-V

Schiedam, October 5th, 2004
For immediate release

In the wake of Photokina 2004, fieldOfView is proudly announcing the first release of the highly anticipated SPi-V engine. The SPi-V engine (short for Shockwave Panorama Viewer, pronounced 'spiffy') is fieldOfView's hardware accelerated panorama viewing engine. The engine will be made publically available during the IQTVRA Summit in Sedona from october 25th - 29th, and introductory prices will be available for Summit attendees.

Ever since fieldOfView posted the first examples of their panoramic technology on their website, there has been a steady stream of requests for licensing the technology. In order to accommodate for these requests, a whole new version of SPi-V had to be designed. For this new, licensable version fieldOfView focussed on realworld panoramic photographer needs, building on their own experience in the industry. Aldo Hoeben of fieldOfView explains "With SPi-V we aim to provide the best immersive experience possible, either fullscreen or integrated in a user interface or browser window. I think a feature such as our adaptive approach to high dynamic range display illustrates how we lay full control of the experience with the photographer and, while minimising authoring costs, deliver an impressively natural experience to a very wide audience."

The SPi-V engine is based on Macromedia's acclaimed Shockwave technology. "Using Shockwave for our viewer gives us certain advantages," says Hoeben, "since we didn't have to build our own technology from scratch. Shockwave has proven itself through the years as a robust multimedia platform, and the hardware accelerated 3d engine included in Director was jointly developed by Macromedia and Intel. People trust those names, for a good reason: they make stuff that works." But its not just the robustness and and good name of Shockwave that is proving to be an advantage for SPi-V. Shockwave has been around for some years now, and has a substantial existing userbase. The SPi-V engine is not 'yet another viewer to download', but instead leverages off what many people have already installed on their computer. "In a way, the SPi-V engine is like a Java applet, but instead of running on Java, its running on Macromedia Shockwave."

The viewer can be used in a browser as well as standalone on Windows and MacOS based systems. When deployed offline, on CD- or DVD-ROM, the viewer can be made to run without requiring installation of system components. On Windows systems, the engine can be embedded in applications such as Microsoft Powerpoint, or any program that supports ActiveX components. Using the standalone viewer application, the viewer can even integrate itself into any running application. The viewer will also be available for use directly within Macromedia Director MX 2004 and newer. An extensive API is available for communication to the viewer.