Destinations, The Official Panedia Weblog

Vivid Sydney Virtual Tours.

“Macquarie Visions casts a new light onto Sydney’s ceremonial street, celebrating in stunning and immersive light displays, the 200th anniversary and story of two great visionary leaders, Governor Lachlan Macquarie and his wife Elizabeth.

The Macquaries’ innovations are revealed with illuminating, theatrical and contemporary light displays in a family friendly free night promenade along the length of the Macquarie Street linking St Mary’s Cathedral to the Sydney Opera House and Circular Quay as part of Vivid Sydney 2010, running from 27 May to 21 June 2010.” [According to the marketing blurb, and they were right.]

Official Macquarie Visions Website – Link

Details & Interview with lighting developers

The 20th June 2010 was a long day. Leaving home on the Gold Coast at 7am for a drive to Sydney 900+km away, I typically have a rest after the 11hr journey. But this was the very last evening of the Sydney Vivid festival, so relaxation was the last thing on my mind.

Unpacking the car at the In-laws (apart from my photo gear) I drove to a nearby train station for the 1hr trip into Sydney City. At 8pm on a Sunday night the train and station were deserted. Arriving at Town Hall I briskly walked 1km to the start of the Macquarie Visions event. I was expecting crowds, being the last night of the show, but was pleasantly surprised to find the place sparsely populated nearing 10pm.

After 2.5 hours of shooting panoramas & a little video I left the Sydney Opera House, hopped a train from Circular Quay back to Town Hall, then another 1hr train to my car.  With my head hitting the pillow at 2am, I was very pleased to have experienced the brilliant lights festival.

Following on are single interactive panoramas of each of the main buildings on the tour.

1. St. Mary’s Cathedral – Virtual Tour

2. Hyde Park Barracks – Virtual Tour

3. The Mint – Virtual Tour

4. NSW Parliament House – Virtual Tour

5. State Library of New South Wales – Virtual Tour

6. Sydney Conservatorium of Music – Virtual Tour

7. Sydney Opera House – Virtual Tour

Vivid Sydney map containing virtual tours. Vivid Sydney Map, FullScreen with all virtual tours

G’day one and all, I apologise for the lack of Virtual Tours lately, but the drought will continue a while longer. Today I’m on a plane to San Francisco for 2 weeks. I’ll be shooting a lot and spending time at the IVRPA (International VR Photographers Assoc.) conference.

In the meantime, you can check out the 200 – 300 panos on my website to satisfy your hunger

If you’re in San Francisco or LA and want to catch up, please send me an email or leave a comment.

Rather than put the Google Developer Day 2007 Virtual Tours in my blog, I’ve used my VR/Maps application to put all the VR’s on a map. Of course the event happened inside a building, so I’ve placed the VR markers approximately where those things happened inside the building. You MUST view the Fullscreen versions to get any appreciation for the very cool building the day was held in.

Click this image for the Virtual Tours.

Yesterday saw me at the Google Developers Day 07 in Sydney, Australia. Google did a fantastic job decking out a beautiful old building for the day, putting on great food and drink, and even throwing in some good talks by top developers…what more could you ask for? I shot about 15 Virtual Tours at the event and hope to put them on a Google Map for you over the weekend. Check back often, or subscribe to my feed to find out when it’s done.

In our final AGMF virtual tour we see the chill out tent. When you’ve seen all the concerts, done the rides, made a fool of yourself at the colosseum and just can’t take much more, maybe it’s time to chill out here for a bit.