Distortion improvement progress

[emalafeew]

What is being lightened in that case is often a double image of the building. Moving your viewpoint between images requires some kind of artifact between foreground that moves and background that doesn’t. In city mode that artifact is doubling the foreground onto the background, in country mode it is stretching the foreground to the background. So the sky lightening also attempts to reduce that artifact, by presenting that doubling as an “after image” instead of reality.

The exception is when 3D building geometry isn’t sufficiently sized for the foreground. This most often happens in the height dimension, because GIS data doesn’t often include accurate building heights they must be defaulted based on type (residence, commercial, apartment, etc). So sometimes the tops of buildings will go by in the sky that aren’t covered by the 3D building. We’ve tried pushing up those default heights but could go further.

We can also play with the sky lightening amount, but if we disabled it completely you’d get something more akin to comfort mode above the horizon, and not be able to make out the 3D buildings. Maybe we could do a gradient lightening, but we do want you to see those 3D building outlines to appreciate what’s foreground and background.

[emalafeew]

Btw in city mode with wooded areas, you will often see 3D buildings that initially look like large bushes. That’s because from far away those buildings are obscured by trees. City mode doesn’t know about trees just buildings, so shows you the building shape when you wouldn’t really be able to see it. It can be fun watching all those little green boxes turn into their actual buildings as you pass by and their view them becomes unobstructed.

[emalafeew]

We're making the sky twice as saturated for next build, to match the "fog level" of 3D geometry appearing at its max distance.

So it's not so jarringly separate from the ground, but still fade enough to highlight 3D geometry in front of it.

[emalafeew]

We made the sky more saturated in latest build in City Mode. It now has the same fogging as the ground, so you won't see a clear line separating sky from ground in the distance, but you can still make out 3D buildings in front of it..

[Loyalty]

I'm still not entirely sure what city mode is

[emalafeew]

I'm still not entirely sure what city mode is

Haha I'll explain!

VZfit Explorer has three modes of displaying the 360 degree images you ride through.  You can change them at any time on the Options menu.

"Country Mode" is the default method, which morphs each image based on depth information it has about the world.  It can look the best and most realistic to ride through, but the quality of that depth information can vary, especially in cities.  We generally recommend it for riding country roads.

"City Mode" is a new method, which uses a map database to project each image onto known buildings and to overlay known roads.  It also flattens out the ride, and fades the image farther away from you, so you can more easily make out the mapped buildings.  It can be a good option for riding in cities with good map information, and the overlaid roads also cover up traffic or pedestrians.

"Comfort Mode" is for people who get motion sickness or when neither of other other methods work well enough.  It does not distort the images at all, so they appear as a slideshow rather than as roads you ride over and buildings you ride past continuously.