Flying under an eclipsed moon and dodging rain squalls, we returned from Sedona yesterday evening to find SoCal all wet and shiny.

The summit turned out to be worth the time and expense.

A new, one-person development company from the Netherlands introduced a killer app that floored the entire audience. It's far superior to QuickTime both visually and technically, and believe me, I'll be showing you some stuff with it just as soon as I can possibly create it.

It had such an overwhelming effect on the gathered association that it assumed significance in causing the board members to rename the group from International QuickTime VR Association to 360 Photo VR Association.

In one demonstration I saw a guy take a four-shot, floor-to-ceiling, hand-held panorama in less than ten seconds. He them demonstrated how to take the individual images and stitch them together quickly using free software that delivers the results in a Photoshop file containing masked layers, making it very easy to rub people or other moving objects in and out where they cross edges of photos.

I like this mobile, light-weight, unencumbered process so much that I've ordered a new digital camera back for my existing fisheye lens. With some practice I should be able to replicate his results, and will then consider selling the Panoscan (although the latter produced many envious looks at the conference :-)

Of course meeting many people whose e-mail addresses were familiar was good. Got some face-time with a small presentation of some of my Italy and England panos from the summer. We should have gone out a couple days early and enjoyed the countryside around Sedona. Surrounding cliffs and rock formations catch the morning and evening light with spectacular results of orange, red, umber, ocher, and cream layers.






A formation known as The Bell




More rocks




A sign from above that I should go back to the conference!