GDonaldBain

I have always used photographs of landscapes in teaching geography and environmental sciences. This led me to create The Geo-Images Project, one of the earliest web sites, perhaps the very first to feature color imagery.

When I first saw Apple's QTVR, I immediately recognized it as a significant advance in portraying landscapes. I built a special camera mount and started making VR panoramas in 1995, presenting them on my website: Don Bain's Virtual Guidebooks. My goal is to portray the landscapes of western North America and Pacific islands, in pursuit of which I have travelled from the tip of Baja California in Mexico to the Arctic Ocean in Canada, creating over 4000 panoramas.

I was elected to the IQTVRA board in 2004. My goal is for the IVRPA to become the unifying organization for VR producers and a resource for everyone interested in VR photography. Also in 2004 Landis Bennett and I organized the World Wide Panorama, which has been very successful in bringing VR photography to the attention of a wider audience, and promoting a sense of community among the participants.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, attended the University of California at Berkeley and University College London in England. Since 1986 I have been Director of the Geography Computing Facility, University of California Berkeley, where I teach computer cartography and field studies. I live in El Cerrito, on the crest of the Berkeley Hills, with my wife, Dr Nora Weldon, and two cats.