Purpose
Credits/ Acknowledgements
Viewing Requirements
Technical Details
Progress and Updates
Copyright Information
Permissions on Reuse
The Virtual Tour project was created with the following purposes and goals in mind:
To assist visitors and incoming freshmen in finding their way around our school
For former students and teachers to enjoy a feeling of nostalgia and visit their old school from anywhere
To increase awareness of the excellent academic programs, achievements, and use of educational technology at our school
To preserve the memories of Irving High in the event the building is destroyed or eventually decomissioned
To showcase students' pride and school spirit
The project was created by Mr. Mynatt, Webmastering teacher at Irving High, and members of the Webmastering 2 class (virtual tour team):
Federico A. and Giovanni M. - photography, IHS historical research, video capture, school song scrolling text. These two went all over the school doing various jobs.
Nick M. and Abrahan A. - panoramic stitching, photography assistance. These guys put in many hours stitching photos. It requires a lot of patience and attention to detail.
Additional Thanks to:
Jonathan F. (web1 student) - for the "virtual tour" logo design. A flyer was sent to the IHS Photoshop club requesting a graphic artist for this design, and Jonathan accepted the challenge. Great work!
Principal Linda Kimm and Vice Principal Kimberly Ruthe - for participation in videos explaining programs and technology
The Irving Tiger Band, directors Phil LaRocque and John Cornish - for recording the school song and fight song just for this project. It sounds great!
John McFarland - Instructional Technology Specialist at Irving High, for letting us include his video of classroom technology use in this project.
The Lair, the award-winning Tiger yearbook, for historic photos of Irving High. Thanks to the yearbook sponsors and students who helped preserve the memories of each graduating class over the years.
Inelda Alaniz, Cindy Farrell - librarians at IHS, for assisting students in locating and scanning old photos of Irving High.
Randall Pliler, Vice Principal, and Dennis Rollinson, head custodian, for assisting with after-hours building access.
The tour was designed to be displayed on our school district computers without requiring any additional software installation. It is designed for Internet Explorer 6.0+ and 1024 x 768 screen resolution but can be viewed with most other major browsers including Mozilla Firefox. The Macromedia Flash plugin is required for videos, audio, slideshows, and other features. The 3D walkthrough requires the Java Runtime Environment (JRE); download it from Sun Microsystems if not already installed. Javascript is required to view parts of the tour. Sound capability is recommended.
A wide variety of software and techniques were used in the creation of each part of the project.
The 3D walkthrough was created using panoramic photography techniques. A series of images was taken from a single point while rotating in a circle. These images were then stitched together to form a panoramic image using special software. Due to the confined spaces and repeating patterns (rows of lockers, brick patterns on walls, etc.) a great deal of manual alignment was necessary. The process was repeated for each of the two hundred or so points in the tour.
A Java applet is used to display the panoramic images and allows for the creation of hotspots by inputting X/Y image coordinates and rotational angles for every point in the tour. This had to be done for every point at least twice and potentially up to four times, leaving and re-entering from various directions (such as at the intersection of two hallways.) This was quite time-consuming.
The remainder of the sections were created using Macromedia Flash, including the video clips, scrolling audio, photo albums, and zoomable animation.
The scrolling rollover menu was created with CSS. An iframe is used to display the content.
The tour is currently at version 1.0 and contains approximately 200 nodes/points. Over 3000 photographs have been taken to create what you see so far. Check the progress map link on the main menu to see what is currently included. Right now we have most of the hallways and courtyards done. The next step is to do all the interior rooms of the building along with the gyms and building exterior. A notice will be posted on the front page of IrvingHigh.com when a new version of the tour is available.
The majority of this project, including the design, panoramic photography, and video clips, is original work. Limited use of images and music from sources outside Irving High is as follows:
"Where in the world is Irving High?" intro includes images of the milky way galaxy and the solar system from NASA. Used in accordance with guidelines on their website:
"NASA still images, audio files and video generally are not copyrighted. You may use NASA imagery, video and audio material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits and Internet Web pages. This general permission extends to personal Web pages."
It also features images from Google Earth™ mapping service. Used in accordance with guidelines on their website:
"Can I post images to the web?
We're flattered to hear that you're further incorporating Google Earth into your online world. You can personally use an image from the application (for example on your website, on a blog or in a word document) as long as you preserve the copyrights and attributions including the Google logo attribution."
No copyright notices were removed from the images used. Due to parts of the copyright notices not being visible on the screen at all times, additional copyright notices are displayed at the bottom of the screen to comply with stated requirements. Use is noncommercial, educational, and limited to a few low-resolution images of Irving High and the surrounding area required to show its position.
Royalty-free music tracks licensed from BBM.net. Additional freeware music tracks from Flashkit.com.
Original images, videos, animations, and other materials in this tour were created for display on IrvingHigh.com. It is provided for public viewing from our website at no charge. All copyrights are reserved; we request that you do not transmit, modify, duplicate, redistribute, or make any part of this project available from other sources or websites without prior written permission. Please do not directly link to videos or other resources. Instead, you are welcome to link to the main page of the virtual tour or to IrvingHigh.com. Direct any questions to the webmaster.