Virtual Tour of Chillon Castle
 I discovered this while researching Chillon for this narrative. A company in Switzerland, Archeotech, SA, has developed VRML (virtual reality modeling language) software and applied that to a tour of Chillon Castle (and other things). To take the tour, follow these instructions.
- Go to the starting page on the web by clicking this link.
- Go to the bottom of the page and click on "Download Live Picture Plugin" for either PC or Mac. Follow the instructions to download and install the "plugin" software. I choose to execute the software from the remote site rather than saving it. If you have a slow connection, you might be better off saving it first and then executing it.
- Once you have the software installed, click on the visite virtuelle link. I received a few error messages about data not downloading properly, but the application seemed to work anyway.
 The tour starts at the entry gate of the castle. Click the little guy logo (lower left of the screen) and you'll see the set of buttons illustrated in the screen shot to the right. The four-pointed arrow rotates the view. Click your mouse in the center of the picture and move right or left to pan. Move up or down to get dizzy.
- The + and – tools move you closer or farther away. The hand tool didn't work in this application, and the information button took me to a site that was denied access.
- The neatest thing about this application is accessed by clicking the "target" icon. It highlights the "hot spots." Click it, then rotate the scene until you see a hot spot on the screen. Next, click the hot spot. You'll travel to that spot (usually a doorway) and into a new scene. Pretty cool, huh?
- Enjoy your tour, but don't forget to return to my vacation narrative!
|
