On-Line Web Site Production Workshop - Detailed Overview

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On-Line Web Site Production Workshop > Detailed Overview > Interactive Journey

Interactive Journey Page

At this time, please open the “Interactive Journey” page from the Upper Sevier site. You should be able to alternately bring this page forward to read this text and bring the Interactive Journey page forward to look at the features being described. If your screen resolution is high enough you may be able to see both of these pages side by side.

Notice again that the graphic elements on the top of the page are similar to other main pages on the web site, except a different picture is used and this is identified as the “Interactive Journey” main page. Another small picture is placed on the bottom left side of the page.

The HTML text on the left side of the page invites the user to begin an Interactive Journey into the watershed by choosing one of eight sections of the digital terrain map seen on the right.

Above and to the left of the map is an Elevation Color Key. This map originated from U.S.G.S. Digital Elevation Model (DEM) files. Corresponding to commonly used topographic maps with 30 meter terrain accuracy, approximately 75 DEM files were used to make a map large enough to cover the entire watershed area. Programs we used for this project included World Construction Set made by 3D-Nature and Natural Scene Designer. When the DEM data is brought into one of these programs a visual view of the elevations are represented by different colors or shades of grey. The elevation color pallet can be changed for the effect you see on the map and that is represented by the Color Key graphic.

The large map is rendered into an image we can bring into Photoshop where additional work has been done. Note that the raw image of this map file is many times larger than your computer screen and over 40 Megabytes in size.

Geographic Information System (GIS) digital map files were provided to Mountain Visions by the Upper Sevier Watershed. These contained the outline boundary of the watershed, the outlines of the sub-watersheds and the river systems. These also included the boundaries of the Cedar Breaks National Monument and Bryce Canyon National Park. The GIS maps were layered on top of the DEM map terrain features and the desired boundaries and rivers were traced in Photoshop.

A copy of the large image was reduced in size to fit on this web page and text names were placed on the map using Photoshop. The shading transparency on the outside boundaries of the Watershed, the small graphic outline of Utah with the location of the watershed and the arrow pointing North were also done with Photoshop. As you roll over each sub-watershed a glow effect will appear. The glow and rollover effects were created in Photoshop and Image Ready.

Looking toward Fish Lake National Forest from cliffs near Rim Reservoir.

Unidentified wildflower

Please click on the John’s Valley area on the map now. Portions of the large original digital terrain map were cropped out to be able to show a new detailed map of each geographic section. Even these are larger than your computer screen and when these cropped maps are sized down for use on this page they show much greater terrain detail and a few more smaller streams. In addition, you will see dots on the map with “rollover” location names. (Photoshop and Image Ready were used to create the names and rollover effects. GoLive was used to place the maps and graphic images on the page.)

These same names and a short description of the John’s Valley area are provided on the left side of the page. In addition, a notice has been placed at the bottom left that the QuickTime Player is required to view the panoramas available at each of these locations. Clicking on the Plug-In Information link will bring up a small window with a link to the QuickTime download site.

Notice that there is a new navigation indicator in the form of graphical text under the main navigation bar. On this page it indicates you are on the John’s Valley page and you came from the Interactive Journey page. These links can navigate back to a previous page or to the Interactive Journey map if you choose.

Please click on the West Fork Hunt Creek location. You will notice that the navigation indicator now shows that you are in West Fork Hunt Creek, you came from John’s Valley, and before that you came from the Interactive Journey page.

If you have QuickTime installed, the 360 degree QuickTime VR panorama will show up in the image window with descriptive text to the left. You can scroll on the panorama picture left and right and slightly up and down. You can also zoom in and out of the picture. Notice that there are three “hot spots” in this panorama. Two of these will let you “jump” to new Interactive Journey locations in the John's Valley area. Another one provides simple information about what you are seeing as you move over a spot. Please read the “Panorama Viewing Instructions” at the bottom right of the page where all of this is explained in more detail.

Finally, you won’t want to miss seeing the Cubical Panorama of the West Fork of Hunt Creek. This will appear in a separate window if you click on the hot text at the bottom left of the page. This is a larger window showing a higher resolution 360 X 180 cubic view of the West Fork area which lets you see the tops of the trees above and the grass directly below.

New technology became available to Mountain Visions as we were finishing the Interactive Watershed Projects. Tripod and Panhead hardware from Kaidan allowed us to shoot one row of photographs at a level 0 degrees, two more rows at 45 degrees up and down and two final photos straight up and straight down. Real Viz Stitcher is the software we used to put the photograph together into the Cubic Panorama. In order to show how attractive this new technology can be we have placed a few of these on the Interactive Watershed web sites. In the future, we will use this panorama technology more often. It is possible to make the panorama full screen and to zoom into great detail on the image. We are starting to develop these additional attractive features now .

Note that other web pages you visit in this detailed overview may have some of the same page elements described above. Generally these will not be described again on each page. To get a good understanding of all of these features it will be imperative to visit all of the pages in this Detailed Overview section the order given.

To continue the overview and analysis of the web site template, please choose from the links below.

Lupine

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