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HD View is an ActiveX control that runs in Internet Explorer under Microsoft Windows. Thus, the first time you go to view content it will ask you if it can install the control. After this, it should automatically load the content.

Navigation:

There are two mouse-based interaction modes. You can switch between modes with the following icons in the upper right corner of the screen or by using the 'H' short-cut key.

Mode 1: [Map mode] Drag the image left/right and up/down with the left mouse.
Mode 2: [QTVR mode] Panning is achieved by pressing the left mouse and moving it away from the center of the screen.

Keyboard controls can also be used. You can zoom in/out with the mouse wheel, or with the +/- keyboard keys, or zoom in by double clicking the left mouse, shift-double click left mouse zooms out.

Tone Adjustment:

There are three tone adjustment modes. You can switch between modes with the following icons in the upper right corner of the screen or by using the 'T' or 'shift'-'T' short-cut key.

Mode 1: [No adjustment]
Mode 2: [Medium adjustment]
Mode 3: [Strong adjustment]

When browsing very large images often times the ideal tone balance can not be pre-computed. For example a dark region may be appropriately dark when zoomed out, but when zooming into that area some gain may be necessary to see details. Much like the auto gain on a camera, tone adjustment attempts to compute the 'best' adjustment for the pixels currently in view. Please see our Soapbox video for more details on tone-adjustment.

Below is a table of some examples of how tone adjustment works. Click on any of the images to access the permalink and see it in action.

Additional Info:

To create and host your own HD View content see here.

To see how we captured the BIG images see here.

Please address feedback to us.