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What is a Virtual Guidebook?
A virtual guidebook is a collection of VR panoramas chosen to characterize a region, a composite view that will give you an idea of what the area is like. Each guidebook includes panoramas of characteristic landscapes, interesting and significant sites, and seeks to portray the particular beauty of the place.
Here is a small example of a VR panorama.
- Use your mouse to rotate it around.
You can see what it was like on the pier in Morro Bay the evening that I took the photos.
Can you find the sea otter?
There are about 5600 panoramas currently available on this site, another 2000 coming up, all taken by Don Bain. They span western North America from the Canadian Arctic to Baja California, from Hawaii to the Missouri River. New images are constantly being prepared - for news of new additions see the Virtual Guidebooks Blog at the bottom of the home page or the Blog Archive.
The panoramas are arranged geographically. Using the maps, lists, and navigation buttons you can explore until you find the area you are interested in. Or better yet, use the Previous and Next buttons to move methodically from state to state, guidebook to guidebook, or through all the localities within a guidebook. For more information on the organization of this site, refer to the Help page.
There are also thematic lists if you are interested in seeing, for example, all the panoramas of lighthouses, or waterfalls. Special lists have been prepared for national parks and California state parks. Many more thematic lists are planned, with topics ranging from the Oregon Trail to famous trees and forests.
There are lists of recommended books, maps, and movies for each geographic area, and special lists of atlases, guidebooks, and works by major Western authors. The posters section lists inexpensive posters and prints from AllPosters and Art.com, geographically grouped.
Click the Prints button on any page to see Don Bain's panoramas in another form. In addition to their use as interactive VR's, the panoramic images can be flattened out and printed, a more traditional sort of photographic presentation. The 360° field of view results in an interesting distortion of perspective and many of them make striking graphics. This gallery of panoramic prints almost constitutes a separate web site, a collection of traditional panoramic landscape photographs. You may enjoy scrolling through the "unwrapped" panoramas as an alternative to the interactive versions.
More Information:
- About the Virtual Guidebooks site
- Help seeing the panoramas and navigating the Virtual Guidebooks web site
- FAQ: Frequently asked questions
- Copyright Statement and Licensing Information
- Linking to the Panoramas on Virtual Guidebooks
- The Virtual Guidebooks Blog, periodic updates on various topics relating to this site
- About Don Bain, creator of the Virtual Guidebooks
- History of the Virtual Guidebooks site
- How are the panoramas made?
- Cameras and lenses I use to make VR panoramas
- Tripods and VR mounts I use to make panoramas
- Software I use to make VR panoramas
- Printing panoramas
- Original fine art prints of the panoramas on this site
- Books, maps and movies - special lists and geographic collections
- Posters from AllPosters.com and Art.com
- Thematic lists of the subjects represented on Virtual Guidebooks
- Geographic lists of the contents of Virtual Guidebooks
| Home | Help | About | Prints | Books | Posters | Thematic | Geographic |