G. Donald Bain - IVRPA Member
VirtualGuidebooks.com
El Cerrito, California, United Stateshttp://VirtualGuidebooks.com
From 1986 to 2008 Don Bain was the Director of the Geography Computing Facility at the University of California Berkeley, where he taught computer cartography and similar technical subjects, plus the geography field class. In 1994 he founded The Geo-Images Project, one of the earliest web sites, to present imagery for education in geography and environmental sciences. In July 2008 he opted for early retirement in order to concentrate entirely on geographically oriented digital graphics.
He was an early adopter of QTVR (VR panoramas) and maintains his own website, Don Bain's 360° Panoramas, currently with about 9500 panoramas. His goal is to create a comprehensive collection of landscape panoramas covering western North America.
Don founded the World Wide Panorama with Landis Bennett in January 2004 and the World Wide Panorama Foundation in December 2008.
He has also been Vice President of the International VR Photography Association (IVRPA, formerly IQTVRA). He was one of the organizers and local hosts for the International VR Photography Conference held in Berkeley in 2007, and the primary organizer on behalf of the IVRPA for Tucson 2010 - The International Panoramic Photography Conference. He prepared an exhibit about his travels in Alaska entitled Panorama Borealis and curated the exhibit Masters of Contemporary Panoramic Photography for the International Panoramic Photography Festival in Palmela, Portugal in June 2011.
Don was interviewed by Michelle Bienias for the March 2005 issue of VRMag.