When you work in the virtual tour business, you have the privilege to witness technological advances almost daily.
But every once in a while these changes combine to create an effect that can only be described as a Game Changer.
Today we are proud to share such an culmination of technological advances.

For a lack of a better word: we’ll call it a Hyper Definition Virtual Tour , but before we get to the technical details, have a look at it:

Virtual Africa presents: The highest definition picture ever taken of Cape Town.

It might not look like much on first glance, but try the following and be ready to be blown away: click on the full screen button (bottom right) and then ZOOM !!

Some details as to the size of this image:

• It was created by stitching 1850,fully zoomed (x 20 optical zoom), 10 MegaPixel images together.
• The time it took from the first shot (top left) and last shot (lower right) being taken, was about 3 hours.
• It’s 205 000 pixels wide.
• That equates to a printout of about 90 m x 15 m!
• The end result was a 25 GigaBytes RAW file which takes about an hour to open on my Macbook Pro.

Despite the size of the image, you can view it here because of a method called ’tiling’.

It works exactly the same way as mapping platforms such as Google Maps.

for example: When you view the whole of South Africa in Google Maps, the image obviously does not contain the high detail imagery of every roof top in the country. It’s only when you start zooming in, that Google Maps loads the relevant information.

The same happens here. We’ve taken our very big picture and created hundreds of thousand lower definition pictures (or tiles) from it. As you zoom into the picture, the only the appropriate tiles are loaded and this allows you to explore a very large image on a relatively slow internet connection. Simple, but smart.

In the coming months we hope to use images like these to organize data, visually.

Once again, similar to Google Maps, we can overlay information on top of this image to further enhance your exploration of Cape Town and the good news is that we are currently working on a few projects which will allow us to do just that.

In the mean time, we would love to hear your suggestions as to what we should call this kind of image/virtual tour…..

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One of those ideas so obvious, that we just did not think about it:

Use Twitter to share  360º images with the world.

Well, we’ve caught on to it at last and now you can follow us at Daily_360 (https://twitter.com/Daily_360).

If you’re not a Twitter user – you can view the latest ‘tweets’ on the right hand side of our Home Page.

We will post (at least) one virtual tour of a South African place of interest per day.

Please share with your friends – we want the whole world to see the beauty of our country and continent.

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So this blog is supposed to be about virtual tours , I know – but what are unwritten rules without their written exceptions?

This post then, is not about 360 degree photography, some interesting place in South Africa or a new feature in Google Earth – it’s a congratulatory ode to the South African surfer who rode the biggest wave at the recent Red Bull Big Wave Africa competition held at Dungeons, near Hout Bay.

(Seen below on the right)

Our friend and hero (and incidentally a partner here at Virtual Africa): JAMES TAYLOR.

If you’re a South African, you’ve probably seen him as the guy with the Volkswagen Beetle on his back in the Santam TV ad – or in a newspaper or two as one of the insane surfers taking on the Cape’s biggest waves during rough winter swells, but what you didn’t know was that he is one of the most unique and inspiring South Africans you’ll ever find. Someone you would really want to know more about.

The man is a legend – and not just because he can hold his breath for longer than most fish, has an eight-pack for a stomach and takes on waves as big as the grand stand at Newlands Rugby Stadium.

James is in fact the original mold from which God made surfers (not many people know this, but I have it on good authority….)

I remember when my mother met him for the first time, she asked the obvious question after seeing his blond hair and the surfboards on his roof rack:

“So James, you’re a surfer?”

“No Tannie” he replied shyly “I just surf”.

In one sentence I understood an important part of my friend James – he is no imitation of a Billabong poster, a surfer for the image.

James is what the poster tries to capture – he is the original waterman.

I can also remember swimming out with him to take some pictures (in the early days) and being a bit worried about the fact that all the other surfers where either coming out of the water or sitting on the shore admiring the size of the waves – I should have known then….

Then there were the times James came running into the Majuba dining hall (our Residence/Fraternity at Stellenbosch University) with the news that he checked the weather sites on the internet and that “tomorrow morning the waves will be cooking, bro”.

In these cases we would finish our engineering class at 16h30, jump in his 23 year old Mazda 323 and head to Cliffs near Rooi Els, snorkel for crayfish before sunset (amazingly the cheapest food available), braai it on the beach and sleep outside.

Next morning James would be in the water by 05h00 before we headed back to be on time for the 08h00 Math class. Ridiculous!

One thing about James that needs to be stated here is that he is unfortunately a misunderstood creature.

Most people think surfing 25 footers is a very serious hobby for him – and that’s the core of the misunderstanding.

If you think surfing is James Taylor’s hobby, you won’t understand when he misses your wedding because ‘Sunset Reef was breaking’ or declines a job offer which will keep him away from Cape Town in the winter. You won’t understand why he has more wetsuits than pairs of pants (seriously!) or really doesn’t see the need in replacing his diesel bakkie which has now done 500 000 km.

When I run into old mates living with this misconception, the question is always: “So, is James still surfing.” or “When is James settling down”.

What they don’t understand is that the man has been settled for a long time now.

He figured out his priorities long before the rest of us- and, on behalf of every 30something guy who knows this legend of a man, I want to thank him for it.

Because when we sit in the traffic or hunch behind our desks in search of the illusive mistress called: “security” , it’s good to know that James is out there somewhere, taking on walls of water big enough to break oil tankers and whooping loudly when he pulls into a barrel you could park a bus in.

Thanks James….for being wild at heart, on our behalf.

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South African Tourism Google Earth layer has gone live.

The layer has been publicly available for just over a month, but now it has been included into the Google Earth Core Database.

For the uninitiated, this means that the content of the layer is available to all Google Earth users. All 300 million of them!

They now simply need to go to the ‘layer section’ (bottom left in Google Earth), navigate to the Gallery and select the South Africa Tourism layer under ‘Travel and Tourism’.

This will allow them to explore South Africa like never before. They can view the 2010 Soccer World Cup Stadiums, have a look at the different Adventure activities on offer and peruse the diverse Safari options available in our beautiful country.

To us, the best feature of all, is obviously the fact the the layer includes 100 scenic virtual tours of the most important tourism destinations in South Africa – virtual tours we made. (Yes Mom, Google likes our pictures too.)

Through the use of 360 degree panoramic photography, virtual explorers will now be able to stand on top of Table Mountain, look down Kimberley’s Big Hole and step inside a hide at Mapungubwe to see the elephants bathing.

We hope they will.

We also hope that the images will give them an idea of the beauty and diversity of this country we love so much and that it will encourage them to come visit sooner than later.

At Virtual Africa, we’re in the ‘vision’ business in more ways than one – and although the inclusion of our work in this layer is only a small part of our ultimate vision – being in Google Earth’s Core, is a big step in the right direction.

Today, for these few dreamers, South Africa is truly alive with possibility……

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So you want to explore South Africa – and you need a map. Well, we think we’ve got something you’d like.

We have about 4000 panoramic images of some of the most beautiful and interesting spots in South Africa and we’ve geo-located the first 1000 or so onto a Google map – for your pleasure.

Now, as mentioned in previous posts, it is a ‘map-in-progress’, but we would really appreciate your input on it.

Currently we have maps for, among other area’s, the Kruger Park, Cape Town, the Garden Route and the Northern Cape and we’ve simply embedded the panoramic images into the placemarks on the map.

The next step is to add the other 3000 images (read: late nights), implement ways to make the navigation easier and allow you to share your own panoramic shots with the rest of us.

The South African map explorer challenge – Part 1

The fact that the map is currently in its ‘raw’ format, does create an unique opportunity to explore South Africa like never before – virtually.

Here’s a challenge or two for the wannabe South African (map) explorer:

Challenge 1

Can you find Crookes Corner, near Pafuri?

Do you know why it’s called Crooks Corner? (a tip: it doesn’t have anything to do with Robert Mugabe – let’s see if we have any history buffs reading.)

Seeing that you’re new at this, we’ll help with the first one, here’s another tip: you can see Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique in on single shot …and it’s in the Kruger Park.

While you’re in the area, have a look at the crocodile ridden Levubu River and the majestic trees at the Pafuri picnic site.

Challenge 2

Here’s another one: Have you ever been the lighthouse at the most southern tip of Africa?

It’s not quite the ‘restaurant at the end of the universe’ , but it’s a wonderful place to visit all the same.

The question is: is it on the Overberg map or on the Cape Point one?

Map Feedback

Enough ‘homework’ for one post.

Let us know if you could find these spots, maybe you’ve been there yourself ….. maybe you should go…

Enjoy!

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Virtual Africa Tours included in new SA Tourism Google Earth layer

About the South African Google Earth layer:

The layer was created by the team at Quirk, under the watchful eye of Tim Shier.

They did a great job with the layout and styling of the placemarks and they’ve already picked up some great reviews – the layer isn’t even in the Google Earth Primary Database yet!

We’re obviously very happy to see our virtual tours given such a prominent place and it would be very interesting to keep an eye on the hit statistics in the next few months

It’s enough to make you feel all warm and fuzzy about being a South African.

To read more about the layer – head over to GottaQuirk .

You can download the layer here. (you need to have Google Earth installed to view the file – get it here)

About the virtual tours:

We shot and processed about 60 000 individual pictures in 7 months. Stitched them all into 5000 panoramic images, chose the best 2500 and dropped them into 100 location based virtual tours.

You can enjoy virtual tours of places like Robben Island , the Sterkfontein Caves and Soweto; you can visit the West Coast, check out Namaqualand in the flower season or head over to the Drakensberg – all with the click of a button.

Creating the virtual tours was a lot of work – but we’re really proud of the end result and we hope it can be used to show the world the beauty and diversity that is South Africa.

Virtual Tours on steroids – the next level

Now, if you think that’s cool – you’d be right, it is……

but we’ve been working on the next level of virtual tour integration on our side.

Have a look at our map-in-progress – we’re busy geo-location each of the individual panoramic pictures and dropping them onto Google Maps.

It’s a work in progress, so we would appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Enjoy!

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