Panoramas

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Panoramas

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The zoom & camera panning tool is a great way to let your audience enjoy the view of a panorama.

1. Inserting the image and activating the tracking shot

Panoramic image in the layout designer

Panoramic image in the layout designer

First of all, add an image which you would like to pan across. It need not necessarily be a panoramic image. The panoramic motion can also be used for normal images.
It is particularly well suited to recordings where you have images over which one’s “gaze can wander”, like, for example, landscape shots or photos of landmarks.

In order to activate the zoom & camera panning tool, click on the icon in the Layout designer.

2. Selecting motion markers

An image detail that does not match the aspect ration of Diashow.

An image detail that does not match the aspect ration of Diashow.

As soon as the zoom & camera panning tool is enabled, the image will be surrounded by a dotted frame. At the edges and corners you will find drag points which you can use to rescale the image.
Use your mouse to click on the drag point and hold the mouse buttong down.
Now drag the frame so that, as in the pictured example, you make it smaller. If parts of the image can be seen beyond the frame and they are not hatched, the aspect ratio of the section does not match the aspect ratio of the show.
This has the consequence that the projecting regions are shown in black or that the underlying object can be seen.

3. Fitting a frame to an aspect ratio

The detail fits the aspect ratio

The detail fits the aspect ratio

To avoid black bars later on in the project and to achieve a good-looking result, drag the border so that the parts of the image which go beyond the dotted line are no longer displayed.
Now position the dotted line at the point the panorama is to begin.
In the example, the panorama goes from left to right. The first motion marker must also be positioned on the left.

4. Inserting new motion markers

New motion markers

Inserting new motion markers

To set the point to which the camera will pan, add a new motion marker using the squared plus symbol.
Now position the frame to the right of the image.
The frame must not go over the edge of the picture, into the non-visible range. If it were to do this, this part of the frame’s contents would later be shown as black.
It is otherwise not problematic if the frames of the first and the second motion markers slightly overlap.

5. Changing time stamps

Since in the example panorama there are only two motion markers the panoramic movement only takes only two seconds. This is quite fast, since the viewer should really be offered enough time to taken in the panorama. Additionally, the image is usually provided with a fading in, meaning that it takes two seconds until the image is fully visible.

In order to give the viewer enough time to watch, the panorama pan should start after two seconds. The movement from the first to the last marker should be slow. Click on the first marker and enter a value of two seconds in the time stamp. Click on the second marker and enter a higher value, such as 20 seconds.

It always depends on how far apart the two motion markers are or how big they are. Sometimes, a higher value is more sensible. Try out what works for you.

6. Avoiding errors

It is possible that your panorama will be jerky when playing. Generally, simple errors can be easily eliminated. If one pays attention to the following things, nothing will stand i the way of a successful panorama:

The pan should not be too fast. The smaller the image section, the slower the panning should be.

The image detail which is selected should not be too small.

Watch out that the bit rate and frame rate are not set too low. With 30 fps and a bit rate of 20,000, you can achieve good results.

Where possible, use a discreet fade in, such as alpha blending.