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A World of Lost (IPIX) images?

Submitted by Michael Quan on Wed, 2006-08-23 14:34.

I was checking out an old copy of National Geographic about the Caves of Oman with
photos by Steve Alvarez. The images were incredible, and the climbing/descending
required to investigate the caves was breath taking. (You won't find me on a rope
500 feet up in the air!) The online component to the story:
http://nationalgeograpic.com/ngm/0304
contains some IPIX images of the caves. Now that IPIX is gone
what will happen to these images, and the whole world of IPIX
images produced in the past several years? Is it possible to convert them?
Who will convert them?

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Re: A World of Lost (IPIX) images?

Submitted by Hoyle Koontz on Thu, 2006-08-24 20:28.

Michael,

Never fear. . . at least not yet. If folks act quickly, they can convert their IPIX images to equirectangular JPEGs and then be set for good. They have to find folks, like myself, that have IPIX software with active licenses. Mine, for example, doesn't go away until May of 2007. I re-upped with IPIX when they did a 2 for 1 deal in May of 2005. I took that as a sign that they were struggling. Soon after, I shifted my workflow completely.

Hopefully these folks that created the IPIX images were smart and didn't just output IPIX images. Hopefully they also created equirectangular images from their stitched files as well. I'm sure this isn't the case in a great many of the situations.

If you run across folks that have IPIX images, feel free to pass them along to me. I've just helped several folks with conversion.

Best,

Hoyle Koontz

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Review your EULA

Submitted by Aldo Hoeben on Thu, 2006-08-24 20:41.

Hoyle, please review your EULA for the IPIX software. I don't think you are allowed to convert other people's images. Not that I care really, but saying things like this on a public website might get you in trouble. Having said that, I have not read the IPIX EULA, and I am certainly no lawyer, but I know Helmut Dersch got in to a lot of trouble for offering a utility that does just what you are describing...

Anyway, Mike makes a good point for open formats. I don't think Quicktime will go away any time soon, but you can bet JPEG images can be read long after Quicktime has vanished of the net. Open, XML-based formats may not be easily viewed, but they can be transformed into something that can be viewed a lot easier than propriatary binary format...

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