Table of contents

• Table of contents
  
• In a nutshell…
  
• Get the shots!
  1. Get ready your equipment.
  2. Plan your shots.
  3. Set a time and date
  4. Positioning the camera.
  5. Note the starting point when taking pictures
  6. Transfer them to the PC.
• Stitch em’ up!
• The ‘Snap’ button
• The ‘Stitch’ button
• The ‘Publish’ button
  • Publish it as PixAround Scene (.JPG)
  • Publish it as a PixAround Web Page (.HTML)
    • Template:
    • Title:
    • Content:
  • Publish it as a PixAround Postcard (.EXE)
  • Publish to Singnet
    • Template:
    • Title:
    • Content:
• The Stitch Toolbar
  • The ‘Add images’ button.
  • The ‘Delete images’ button.
  • The ‘Select All’ button.
  • The ‘Rotate images’ button.
  • The ‘Reverse images’ button.
  • The ‘Undo’ button.
  • The ‘Copy’ button.
  • The ‘Paste’ button.
  • The ‘Manual Align’ button.
• FAQ

In a nutshell….

PixAround provides fully integrated solutions that allow users to create and publish 360° interactive PixAround Webpages in 3 simple steps, “Snap, Stitch, Publish!. It is an easy 3-step process – any new user should have no difficulty following the 3 steps. However, do bear this in mind: A PixAround Scene is made up of a series of photographs. Hence, how your PixAround Scene turns out after stitching will be largely dependent on the quality of your photographs.

To ensure you start off on the right foot, we have prepared a short guide – it will provide guidelines on how to take your photographs, as well as show you how to take your photographs for optimum PixAround experience!

On how to create PixAround content, follow the pointers and you can be sure your first PixAround Scene will turn out successful!

Get the Shots!

Before you can start stitching your photographs together using PixMaker Lite, you need to take the photographs first. Photo-taking sounds like an easy task, and it is, really. But to ensure you do it without any hiccups, you need to PLAN.

1. Get ready your equipment.

   Any digital camera that has the capacity to shoot 640 x 480 pixels can be used. It will be good if a resolution of 800 X 600 pixels can be achieved as it gives sharper images.
   

   
   

2. Plan your shots.

   Decide what you want to shoot beforehand. It can be a list of scenes that you have in mind.
   

   
   

3. Set a time and date.

   The best time to shoot your pictures is in the morning between 10 – 11am. If you’re shooting outdoors, choose to do it on a sunny day. Postpone your photography session if you must. It’s better to get it right the first time, than to do a poor job and then have to do it all over again.

   If it is an indoor shoot, try to take the pictures with a flash in the darker areas. This is to maintain consistent of the brightness and contrast in all the images that you want to stitch.
   

   
   

4. Positioning the camera.

   For best results, set the camera in a portrait position. To obtain the maximum possible vertical view.

   Another point to note is that the maximum resolution that PixMaker Lite can stitch is 800 X 600. So be sure that the camera setting is correct.
   

   
   

5. Note the starting point when taking pictures.

   A common mistake made by users is that they forget the starting point of their pictures.

   To help you remember, choose a landmark as a starting point, then take a series of 360° shots in a clockwise direction. You have to take the pictures clockwise because PixMaker Lite stitches the images clockwise by default. If the pictures are taken anti-clockwise, they will have to be rearranged first before stitching.

   Try not to tilt the camera in any direction and keep it parallel to the ground while taking the pictures. Note the edge (side) of the image taken and allow some overlapping (at least 10% overlapped as shown in Fig. 1) when taking the next picture.

   The average number of shots required to be taken for one scene is about 12 – 18 depending on the type of lens that you are using.

   
   Fig.1
   

   
   

6. Transfer them to the PC.

   Transfer the series of images that you have taken to the PC. This is where the images are stitched and published. If you're using a digital camera, please refer to your digital camera's user guide how to download the pictures into your PC. If you're using a film camera, scan the pictures into your PC. Please remember to save your images in JPG, PCD or BMP. Do create different folders for different sets of images for easy identification. Otherwise you will have heaps of images that do not make sense.
   

   
   

Now that you have the images stored in a folder, it’s time to stitch them together and see the result. Launch the PixMaker Lite program and you will see the ‘Snap’ button near the top left hand corner.

Click on the ‘Snap’ button and a prompt box (Fig. 2) will appear.

Select ‘My Computer’ and click ‘OK’ and you will be asked for the files that require stitching.

Navigate to the folder that you have stored the series of images and select all the images that need to be stitched and click on ‘OK’.

Once you have clicked on ‘OK’, the series of images will be displayed on the top window. To perform simple tasks to individual images, right-click on the desired image. A series of options will be made available as shown in Fig. 4

The ‘Stitch’ button

When this ‘Stitch’ button is pressed, PixMaker Lite will stitch the series of selected images. You can watch the stitching process and see how the program aligns the images together on the fly.

If the images are not aligned, PixMaker Lite will crop them to give you the best possible result as shown in Fig. 5.

The PixMaker Lite is also able to tolerate tilt to a certain degree but not too much. That is why a steady hand is required during the photo shoot. If the tilt error is too great, the stitching process will give an error. As far as possible, ensure that the camera is always upright and vertical.

The ‘Publish’ button

The ‘Publish’ option allows you to save the stitched image into three different formats. They are: JPEG, HTML or Postcard.

• Publish it as PixAround Scene (.JPG)

  Publishing in JPG format will save the stitched image as a single JPEG file like the one below:

  
  Fig.8

  Before achieving a picture like this, you will be asked to choose the image quality and preferred size of the JPEG file. The better the quality and the bigger the image size, the larger the file size. You might want to experiment and play around to obtain the desired configuration (balance between both quality and size).

  
  Fig.9
• Publish it as a PixAround Web Page (.HTML)

  When published in HTML, three files will be generated altogether. They are: JPEG, HTML and the JAR files.

  Please note that in order to view the HTML through the browser, these three files are required to be together. If the files required are kept in separate folders, ensure that the path in the HTML is addressing the respective folders correctly.

  This is how it looks like when you opt to publish it in HTML:

  
  Fig.10

  Template:

  At the moment, there is only one template available for PixMaker Lite.

  
  Title:

  Key in the title of your Web Page here. As you can see from the preview, it will appear above the picture.

  
  Content:

  Key in the information that you would like to accompany the PixAround picture that has been created. As shown in the preview, the content is below the picture.

  
  

  
  

• Publish it as a PixAround Postcard (.EXE)

  This is one of the special features that PixMaker Lite offer to users. When the image is published as a postcard, an EXE file is created. To create an EXE file, key in your message to your intended recipient, then select the image quality and the image size for portability. The dialog box for these actions is shown below:

  
  Fig.11

  Next, you will be asked to save the file (postcard) to the desired folder. Run the EXE file that has just been created and the stitched image will be displayed together with the message that has been entered as seen in Fig. 12.

  
  Fig.12

• Publish to Singnet

  This is one of the special features that PixMaker Lite (SE) offers to Singnet users. It allows you to publish Web pages directly to your Singnet Web account. This is how it looks when you opt to publish your Web page directly to Singnet:

  
  Fig.13

  Template:

  At the moment, there is only one template available for PixMaker Lite.

  
  Title:

  Key in the title of your Web page here. As you can see from the preview, it will appear above the picture.

  
  Content:

  Key in the information that you would like to accompany the PixAround picture that has been created. As shown in the preview, the content is below the picture. Once you have keyed in the content, click 'Next' and you will be asked for your user name and password to upload your PixAround Webpage. Under the 'Publish filename', enter 'index.html' or ‘welcome.html’. This Web page will be the first displayed when you enter the URL (or Internet address) of your PixAround Webpage.

  If you want your PixAround Webpage to be displayed in another directory/folder, enter the directory/folder name in the 'Remote Directory' field. This will allow you to upload the PixAround Webpages to the specified directory/folder.

  Please note that you need not create or enter ‘Public_HTML’ folder in any of the fields as PixMaker Lite SE automatically uploads the HTML. JPEG and JAR files into the ‘Public_HTML’ directory/folder.

  
  Fig.14

The Stitch Toolbar

The stitch toolbar is not shown by default but you can to display it. To show the stitch toolbar (see Fig. 13), click on ‘View’ and select ‘Stitch Toolbar’. The stitch toolbar will be displayed just below the ‘Snap, Stitch, Publish’ buttons. The individual buttons are described below.

This button allows you to add images that have been left out during the ‘Snap’ action. A dialog box will prompt you to select the files or images that you require and to click on ‘OK’. The images will then appear on the series of images and you will be able to drag and insert into the required position.

The ‘Delete images’ button.

This button deletes unwanted images from the series of images displayed. This purpose is to allows you to remove images that were accidentally inserted or taken during the shoot. You can delete images in several ways.

One way is to select the file and press ‘delete’. The other is to right-click the unwanted image and select ‘delete’. This action does not delete the unwanted image from the folder. It merely removes the image from being stitched.

The ‘Select All’ button.

You can select all the displayed images when this button is pressed. This action is to let users to perform a batch control for all the images. For example, you can delete, reverse or rotate all the images.

The ‘Rotate images’ button.

This button let users to rotate the images to the correct orientation prior to stitching. This is especially helpful when the pictures are taken in a portrait position. The button will rotate the selected images to the position that is required before performing the stitch.

The ‘Reverse images’ button.

This button allows the image selected to be reversed from anti-clockwise to clockwise.

The ‘Undo’ button.

Like most programs, this button is useful when an accidental action is executed. This will undo the last action that you have performed.

The ‘Copy’ button.

This button allows you to duplicate the image(s) that need to be stitched.

The ‘Paste’ button.

This button definitely requires no introduction. What else can you do after you have copied the images? Paste! Select the desired position for the image then click on this button and it will insert it into the position as wished!

The ‘Manual Align’ button.

Sometimes the image may not be as satisfactory as it may be and some user intervention is required. This is where the ‘Manual Align’ function comes in.

When there are some misaligned pictures and you would like to perform a manual alignment, you can click on this button and a window (Fig.14) will pop up. This is where user can re-align the pictures.

The little window on the top right hand corner is to allow you to select the image that requires re-alignment. You can scroll to the desired image at this little window and the larger window on the left will display the two images that are selected.

Move the cursor over to the larger window and the cursor will change into a hand. This indicates that you are now able to move the picture to the desired position. When the image(s) is at the satisfactory position(s), click on ‘Done’ and PixMaker Lite will perform a re-stitch. The required result will be shown after the re-stitch.

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FAQ

Q: What is a PixAround Scene?
A: PixAround Scene refers to a partial or full 360° panoramic image.

Q: What is a PixAround Webpage?
A: A PixAround Webpage is a Web page that contains PixAround Scenes.

Q: What is the difference between PixAround Scene and PixAround Webpage?
A: A PixAround Scene is a partial or full 360° panoramic image. A PixAround Webpage contains PixAround Scenes.

Q: What is a PixMaker project file (*.pim)?
A: If you are working on a new PixMaker project but you have something to attend to before the work is completed, you can save your work as a PixMaker project file (*.pim), then return later to continue working on this file.

Q: What is the average loading speed of a PixAround Scene?
A: The loading speed is dependent on the size and resolution of your PixAround Scene (image), the size of the Java applet (the .jar file which is about 15KB in size), as well as the size of your HTML page and other graphics on the page.

Q: What is the size of a typical PixAround Webpage?
A: The PixAround Webpage includes the standard HTML text file, the JPEG image(s) used and the Java applet. The weight of the page depends very much on the quality of the image that you want. It can be as low as 40 KB or up to as much as 300 KB in size. Add this up to the size of the Java applet which is about 15KB in size and the total size should be less than 100KB.

Q: Do I need a plug-in to view a PixAround Webpage?
A: No. You don't need to download a plug-in or a separate application to view a PixAround Webpage. All you need is a browser with Java Virtual Machine (JVM) 1.1 and above (eg. Netscape 4.0 & above and IE 4.0 & above).

Q: What are the platforms that support PixMaker Lite?
A: PixMaker Lite is supported by the following operating systems:

Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows 2000 Windows NT 4.0