Zooming in to a still image

[zapcat]

I am using MSP8 and want to take a map of france and zoom into a location on the map. For instance we view france and then slowly zoom into Paris. This will be run on a PAL DVD (eventually!) and it will be part of an overall video sequence.

Can anyone advise me on how I achieve this in MSP8? And what resolution should I make the still image so it doesn't pixelate?

Cheers!

Zap

[GeorgeW]

You would add a Moving Path where your starting key (little diamond) is the wide shot. Then the ending key is the zoomed in shot. Use the option to "keep aspect ratio"

Regards,
George

[Devil]

Ideally, you want, say, 720 x 576 (480) at your maximum zoom in for best legibility. If you want a 10 x zoom, this implies that your whole map would need to be 7200 x 5760 (4800) which is just one whacking big image file and would still show several départements around Paris. A large zoom-in, in one fell swoop is not really very practicable. There are several work-arounds. The ideal would be to use the zoom of a video camera (and/or dolly it). If you are stuck with a still digicam, with, say, 2400 pixels wide image, take one shot, centred on Paris, but including about 3 linear times the area you wish to include. Then take a second shot, with 3 times this and so on, until you have the whole map of France included. You can then skilfully use 2-D Moving Path for zooming 3x, juggling the durations and crossfades across the images so that it will appear relatively smooth and seamless. May require more than a couple of minutes to perfect it, though. I would recommend you use intermediate keyframes to change the rate of zooming, slowing down as you approach Paris. If this is too much like hard work, you can also try it with just the full map image and the detailed one, with a long crossfade between them, distracting your audience by ensuring the band of the Garde républicaine plays a loud fanfare during their rendering of La Marseillaise during the crossfade (or other suitable music). I bet no one will comment if you do that! I've seen this technique used in commercial films!

[zapcat]

Thanks Guys! I'll give your suggestions a try.

Zap

[Gorf]

Is the film for private use?

Why not use windows media to capture a "zoom" on Google Earth?

[mmpo]

Tell me about using Windows Media to capture Google Earth. I've tried several screen capture programs, but it's always jerky.

Thanks for your help.

[WesleyS]

Have the same problem as mmpo.
Help, please
Wesley

[Devil]

Video screen capture is hairy, at the best. Trying to capture something as resource intensive as zooming satellite images off the Internet (and your browser/firewall/anti-virus etc. will use a fair amount of your resources) will slow it down, even at low resolution. I don't think this is a good idea unless you have dual top speed dual-cores + 5 Gb RAM.

There is another way of achieving an effect and that is to morph between maps or from a map to a 3-D drawing. Needs a 3rd party morphing software, though. See http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/morphing/

[Ron P.]

Here's another Morph program that might be able to do what your trying to do. WinMorph, from DebugMode.com, it's free...

http://www.debugmode.com/winmorph/


Ron P.

[Gorf]

Tell me about using Windows Media to capture Google Earth. I've tried several screen capture programs, but it's always jerky.

Thanks for your help.

I've tried Camtasia and Fraps. Camtasia is better for presentation (its own codec maintains screen colours with low filesize), while Fraps is better for games (less performance hit, but bigger files).

I've been told that the Windows media capture software is a "happy medium" - it's not too hard on the CPU and it maintains a decent image, but I've not tried it. I'll be experimenting with it at some point next week, so I'll let you know how I get on.

I didn't know about Fraps or WM screen capture for my entry to SiT2005 (a collaborative disc made by the mug-sw members), so I just piped the output from the s-video of one PC through a USB analogue capture device to another PC capturing in high-bitrate MPEG. It worked OK for what I was trying to achieve.