Control Six Degrees of Freedom, not Three

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1.  Use Liquid Galaxy in a Cave or HyperWall Configuration
2.  Navigate in and out of Space / High Altitude and Street View
3.  Notice the "angle" appears to change between one and the other

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
If I am in Cave Configuration, with monitors wrapped around (and potentially 
above / below) me, I would expect to always have a view of everything around, 
even if that is Space / Stars above or behind me, and the world as I zoom in.  
The high level / space view seems to be more HyperWall oriented than Cave 
oriented.

Conversely, If I have my monitors configured for a huge HyperWall, I would 
expect it to always stay as such, no matter how many monitors I have in front 
of me in a grid or row along the wall, instead we get a wrap-around based on 
the ViewSync/*Offset values.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
Google Earth: 6.0.3.2197
Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit Desktop (Linux 2.6.32.0)

Please provide any additional information below.
I believe this is a limitation of the parameters allowed in the telemetry.  
Right now there are only Three Degrees of Freedom available:
ViewSync/pitchOffset
ViewSync/yawOffset
ViewSync/rollOffset
I believe the high up / space orientation is using these more like subtle XYZ 
Offsets, not PYR Offsets, and then the closer you get to the earth / Street 
View, it converts these to be more / completely PYR Offsets (PYR being Pitch / 
Yaw / Roll).

Having Six Degrees of Freedom (XYZ + PYR) at all times would ensure we can 
configure as versatile usage as possible.

FYI - I am responsible for a Liquid Galaxy installation at NASA - Johnson Space 
Center.  If I have missed somewhere that we can control the panel / camera 
position with better fidelity than I have so far, please let me know.  
Otherwise, my experience on other robotics + VR projects leads me to believe we 
need full XYZ + PYR offset definitions in the packet, so we can position panels 
(displays / camera origins) anywhere we want.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by stuarten...@gmail.com on 31 Aug 2011 at 7:53

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi Stuart, the viewsync yaw/pitch/roll/fov settings are really designed to 
allow displays to be placed anywhere on a sphere, with the master camera/viewer 
in the center. There are other ways of getting Google Earth onto that sort of 
large display. eg. Chromium, XDMX, or just a big multi-head display card!

Have you got a setup which combines both curved and flat?

Anyhow, it IS feasible to modify the master viewsync packet in flight, changing 
the XYZ (lat,long,alt) that is delivered to each slave to build an 2d array of 
synchronised viewers looking into the world from slightly different locations. 
Just a little bit of maths is needed!

Original comment by alfski on 29 Oct 2011 at 2:50

[GoogleCodeExporter]

We currently have our NASA Liquid Galaxy setup with eight displays on 36 degree 
angles, populating 8 sides of a decagon.  But we have ideas for other 
adaptations.

One we would like to mimic the portals on International Space Station, to 
reproduce the current view from any of its windows, to be able to "see" what 
the crew sees.  Some of these angle back towards each other, so its not just 
simple defining outward views on a sphere around the viewer, but independent 
camera angles from any offset from the master (like 30' over, 2' up, and turned 
30 degrees back towards yourself).

Another is an enhanced Liquid Galaxy "cave" but with floor and ceiling all 
providing video surfaces as well as the sides.  Also, it would be nice if we 
could "flip" the video, so we could mimic a rear-view mirror on a small monitor 
inside the cave setup showing a view from behind the "driver."

Original comment by beor...@gmail.com on 29 Oct 2011 at 2:17