Site Screen|| View Screen|| View Selection|| Movement

"HALIEN Tour" HELP

Welcome to the HALIEN Tour HELP page.

This is a guide to navigating the tours presented on this web-site.

Each individual tour involves a 'site' within which a number of 'spots' are laid out. A spot corresponds to a fixed geographical point on the ground. From each spot several (typically eight) 'views' are presented. Simple controls allow the selection of the main view to be observed and movement of the observer from one spot to another within a site.

HALIEN tours are presented at two levels: the 'Site Screen' and the 'View Screen'.

Site Screen

The Site Screen presents a scrollable listing of all or some of the spots available within this site. Each spot is represented by a single typical view (one of up to eight views visible from that spot). Spots in the same street, beach, etc. are shown in order along the same row. Simply click on the view to select that spot for detailed viewing. Clicking on a name at the left of the views selects the first spot in that row.

Along the top of the screen are buttons to select various types of spot (coastal, those showing hotels, etc) from the full list (which is the default when the Site Screen is first selected).

In some cases (e.g. for the Torquay site) a geographical street map may be available (shown as a thumbnail button at the top left of the Site Screen). From this screen spots can be selected by clicking on their location on the map (when the cursor changes to a 'hand').

View Screen

The View Screen presents the currently selected view from a spot, along with thumbnail versions of all the views available from this spot and a thumbnail view from each of the adjacent spots to which the observer can move.

The selected view is presented in the middle of the screen as a VGA (640 by 480 pixel) resolution image.

To the left of the selected view is a column of thumbnail (64 by 48 pixel) versions of all the views visible from this spot. These are arranged in left to right order from the top downward. Where eight views are presented, these are typically oriented at 45 degree intervals. The angular width of each view is such that these overlap with the views on either side, giving a complete 360 degree view from this spot.

To the right of the selected view is another column of thumbnail views. These each present one view from each of the spots adjacent to the current spot. The view chosen is, where possible, looking in the direction that one would move in going to that spot.

View Selection

To select the next view to either the left or right of the current one, click on the main view within the left or right 100 pixels, respectively.

To select the view opposite in direction to the current one, click on the main view within the bottom 180 pixels.

Alternatively, any view from this spot can be selected directly by clicking on its thumbnail at the left of the screen.

Clicking on the spot name at the top right of the screen shows a horizontal arrangement of all the views from this spot. Many spots also feature other related images (such as how this spot looks viewed from the sea or prominent nearby items of interest).

Movement

To move from this spot to an adjacent one (if any) visible from the currently selected main view, click in the top 100 pixels of the main view. If there is no nearby spot in the direction currently being viewed then the next view to the left or right from the current spot is selected.

Alternatively, any adjacent spot can be moved to directly by clicking on its thumbnail at the right of the screen.

Finally, the site screen can be selected (from which all spots are accessible) by clicking on
at the lower left corner of the screen.

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Note: this help page should be in its own window.
Simply close it to return to the tour
.