Virtual Panorama Photography

360 Degree Virtual Panorama Photos/Photo Imaging for Producing Authentic On-Site Family History Experiences: With Multimedia Interactive CDs / Web-Posting Sites

Presented by John Kuzmich, Jr. (Denver, Colorado) [mailto:jkuzmich@earthlink.net jkuzmich@earthlink.net] and Ivan Majc (Ljubljana, Slovenia) [mailto:majc.irdbss@siol.net majc.irdbss@siol.net]

2011 RootsTech Conference Salt Lake City, Utah February 10-12, 2011

Clinic Handout: www.kuzmich.com/rootstech.pdf with all pertinent URL’s

Introduction: Remote Access To Stimulate Interest in Distance Family History Research

While most people are very excited searching for their ancestors there are challenges dealing with travel distance, accommodations, foreign languages, finding and locating people, local priests, local archive offices. For an overview of how I have expanded my genealogical research with this web-based collaboration go to www.kuzmich.com/overview.html. This clinic presentation presents the technology advances of 360 degree virtual panorama and photo imaging technologies to help create a powerful web-presence on the Internet attracting relatives’ interest in the original locations of their family roots. With 360 degree virtual panorama technology, families and professional genealogists who travel to ancestral home sites can share their experiences as never before. What was once limited to single, one-dimensional photos can be explored on a computer, putting the viewer in the middle of the photograph looking in every direction. You could see your ancestor’s home inside and out, villages, workshops, landscape, the harbor, churches, cemeteries with just a “click” on your PC or Mac.

Few of us are in a position to travel to foreign countries to visit ancestral villages. A hundred years ago most small villages might have 20 to 50 houses, but now towns have grown around these villages. Often, house numbers have changed along with new streets.

For those thinking to visit ancestral homes, questions need to be addressed. How much foreign genealogical research can be done in a week–to-ten days? Will old books be able to be read? Are those old books even in an archive or does a local priest keep them? Will a reservation be needed to even be able to see the books and records? How will the correct cemetery, grave, house or village be found? Ivan Majc and his wife Rosana will be present on-line from Ljubljana, Slovenia to help answer questions pertaining to the technology being presented. Rosana Majc does genealogy work in Slovenia and reads old German language, in Latin, Hungarian and Serbo-Croatish, and is skilled at connecting ancestral families. Ivan Majc is an expert in 360° Virtual Panoramas technology and cemetery reconstruction with database linking for remote access over the Internet.

As a part of their photographic service for their customers, Ivan and Rosana Majc put everything (360° Virtual Panorama, Pictures, your Genealogy files, etc) on CD and send it by mail. Or the patrons can customize the work themselves with all the footage provided.

This technology can be useful for documenting where ancestors lived displaying their root locations in real-track on personal computers in the convenience of ones home. Ultimately, people will be motivated to start their distant research after experiencing a virtual visit to ancestral villages and homes.

The Technology Tools for This Presentation

Google search is the web-based application that will be used to demonstrate the 360 degree virtual panorama and photo imaging technology “live” over the Internet from Ljubljana, Slovenia. This search tool is integral toward attracting interest and inquires from far-flung relatives which widens communication and research.

Photo imaging/Virtual Panorama technology can create CD-slideshows and post interactive photos with web site GPS accuracy, showing locations for photos taken with pertinent notes. When digital photos are combined with time-synchronized GPS tracks, photos can be linked with Google Earth Maps and cemeteries for powerful family history web-presence displays.

Photo imaging/Virtual Panorama technology can create CD-slideshows and post interactive photos with web site GPS accuracy, showing locations for photos taken with pertinent notes. When digital photos are combined with time-synchronized GPS tracks, photos can be linked with Google Earth Maps and cemeteries, for powerful family history web-presence displays.

Technology Solutions for Family History Research

With the advent of GPS photo technology combined with multimedia applications and multipoint videoconferencing, it is possible to display ancestral roots locations over thousands of miles by photo imaging with GPS tracking via Google maps and 360 degree virtual panorama tours. It is an amazing new way to organize your photographs with digital mapping.

GPS is the foundation behind digital mapping navigation systems. GPS coordinates the photos position with geographical location as well as atomic time obtained by a terrestrial GPS receiver from GPS satellites orbiting the Earth. These interact together to provide the digital mapping programming with points of origin in addition to the destination points needed to calculate distance. This information is then analyzed and compiled to create a map that provides the easiest and most efficient way to reach a destination. Though digital mapping can be found in a variety of computer applications, such as Google Earth, the main use of these maps is with the Global Positioning System, or GPS satellite network, used in standard automotive navigation systems.

The highlight of the clinic will be to display 360° Virtual Panorama views as Flash and with HTML (it could also be as Quick Time, Flash (9/10) and HTML). For example, I will display from my roots in the Novo Mesto, Slovenia area, a virtual tour of my Slovenian roots inside and outsides of churches, in the villages where my ancestors originated from and a village cemetery’s grave stones indexed for instant viewing and surrounding topography. A cemetery has been indexed and a virtual tour with 360 degree photos will be available on demand on the Internet so that visitors to my web site can authentically view the cemetery in Stopice, Slovenia with the interactiveness of search capabilities over the Internet as though they were actually there. For a sample of five different virtual 360 degree panorama photo technology tours and photo imaging in the same locality of Slovenia, go to the following web sites:


 * 1) For a 360 degree virtual panorama interior view of the 1700 church that my Turk ancestors attended in Stopice, Slovenia, go to this URL, www.kuzmich.com/Slovenia/Church%20at%20Stopice%20near%20Novo%20Mesto.html, left click the photo and drag in any direction. The photo moves with the mouse.
 * 2) Meet My Slovenian Roots with multiple 360 degree virtual panorama photography and photo imaging technology of my ancestry roots in Novo Mesto, Slovenia: http://www.kuzmich2.com/Majc/Big%20Show/applet/big%20show2.html
 * 3) http://www.burger.si/NovoMesto/NovoMesto2.htm with dynamic photo imaging demonstrations from a single photo and interactively linked "live" with a Google map!
 * 4) Stopice Cemetery in PDF with every grave stone was photographed and indexed in this photo which is great for quick identification via photo imaging technology). On slides 3 and 4, click on the names that are enclosed in a box and the grave stone photo instantly apears.
 * 5) http://www.lythgoes.net/genealogy/test8/histories/verdun.php with abundant text capabilities to augment the virtual panorama tour. More URL’s to be incorporated in the clinic handout.
 * 6) Live demo 1 (photos with camera headings) &amp; Live demo 2 (photos + tracks)
 * 7) Visit WORLD EXPO 2010 with JetPhoto, Let's GO !
 * 8) http://www.utah3d.net/panoramas/SulpherCreek_swf.html
 * 9) http://www.utah3d.net/panoramas/DoubleArch1_swf.html
 * 10) http://www.utah3d.net/panoramas/PaysonC_swf.html
 * 11) http://www.utah3d.net/panoramas_2/AztecButte_swf.html
 * 12) http://www.utah3d.net/panoramas_3/GrandView.html
 * 13) Mount Everest: http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen2/full22.html
 * 14) Dozens of virtual panorama photos of the American West: http://rockymountainscenery.com/qtvr.html
 * 15) More URL’s will be incorporated genealogical purposes in the clinic handout. Software being integrated in this Internet presentation collaboration includes:

GoToMeeting videoconferencing software can seamlessly host 15 users anywhere in the world without Broadband issues and allow me to have Mr. Ivan Majc in Ljubljana, Slovenia assist me “live” in the clinic. Since we don't need to use a webcam it will allow Mr. Majc to demonstrate his virtual panorama technology on his monitor’s screen display with the software being viewed by everybody in the conference session as well as answer questions.

The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding© ("TNG") is a powerful way to manage and display your genealogy data on the Internet, all without generating a single page of static HTML. Instead, information is stored in MySQL database tables and dynamically displayed in an attractive fashion with PHP (a scripting language).

JetPhoto Studio allows you to review your photos on a map built into the program which can show the locations where all photos were taken. It is possible to turn photos and slideshows into a Flash movie or photo gallery. It is now easy to share them on the Internet by turning your photos into a Flash movie or a web gallery.

Heritage Collector Pro is a complete family history software to help organize, share and find photos for CD and web postings. Easy to use. It will be used to demonstrate unique collections of multimedia presentations.

Construct family history blog and podcasts at http://kuzmichgenealogy.blogspot.com with several multimedia applications to show/explain important information in a summary format. I presently use http://www.tumblr.com and http://bloggers.com for hosting the blogs and Mixcraft (http://www.acoustica.com/mixcraft) music sequencing application for creating podcasts with multimedia audio, digital and video files to the podcasts with options for creating/adding background music files and narrations. This step involved other members of my family not utilized in the verification and changes to New.FamilySearch.Org.

Construct a family web site that Internet browsers can locate to make my family history web site number one in Google searches for the following localities in Poland, Ukraine and Slovenia. Go to http://www.kuzmich2.com/genealogy/index.php for more insight.

Ivan Majc’s specialized virtual panorama camera and software will be discussed and covered at www.kuzmich.com/rootstech/panorama.html.

Using www.dropbox.com FTP site to transfer large digital genealogy photos world-wide for translation up to 2 GB’s in size for free.

Panorama Photographic Equipment Needs and Suggestions:

For the do-it-yourself people who are willing to travel to their ancestor’s localities, suggestions for purchasing panorama cameras with reference to digital cameras and software applications and supporting equipment will be discussed and included in the clinic handout allowing them to stitch multiple panorama photos together ranging from point-and-shoot cameras to DSLR’s and beyond.