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Virtual Gettysburg
Technical Supplement and Tutorial


Contents
What’s in the box?
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Installation
Program CD-ROM Instructions
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Experience
Watch the campaign and battlefield tours
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Explore
Stop the tours and explore the battlefield
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Moving within panoramas
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Moving between panoramas
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Getting to The Photograph Gallery
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The Photograph Gallery interface
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Finding Things on the Interactive Map
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Going Places from the Interactive Map
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Contents

What’s in the box?
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Virtual Gettysburg allows you to experience the Gettysburg battlefield tours in three different formats - interactive CD-ROM, audio-only CD, and tour book.

CD-ROM
The Virtual Gettysburg Program Disc is a PC/Mac compatible CD-ROM. This will run in any Macintosh or Windows computer (Win 95/98, NT, 2000, ME, XP) See the next chapter for installation instructions.

Audio CDs
The tri-fold audio CD pack contains 3 audio-only CDs. These discs can be listened to using your home stereo system, a Walkman or your car audio CD player. They contain the same guide narrative as the Virtual Gettysburg Program CD-ROM, but without any pictures.

Tour Book
The Virtual Gettysburg Tour Book is a transcription of the narrative text contained in the Virtual Gettysburg Program CD-ROM and audio CDs. This book contains maps showing the general location of the 21 guided tour stops as well as historic photographs.


Installation

Program CD-ROM Instructions
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Virtual Gettysburg is designed to be as easy as possible to use. Simply insert the Virtual Gettysburg Program CD into your CD-ROM drive. If your computer has QuickTime 5 and is set to Autorun, you will be taken right to the Virtual Gettysburg title screen. Nothing will be copied to your hard drive. It’s that easy.

Autorun
If Autorun is disabled, follow these steps:

PC:
1. Select Run from the Start Menu.
2. In the Run box, type x:\VGpc.exe where x is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive, and click Enter.

Mac:
1. Double-click on the 'VGmac' icon.


QuickTime™
Virtual Gettysburg requires QuickTime 5. If you don’t have it installed on your computer you will be asked if you would like to install it. The QuickTime software is free and included on the CD-ROM. Simply follow the instructions in the QuickTime installer. Once QuickTime is installed, Macintosh computers will need to be restarted, PCs won’t.

Version
Note: To see which version of the CD-ROM you own, hold down the ‘v’ key as the CD-ROM starts up. The version number will be displayed on the Virtual Gettysburg title screen. Virtual Gettysburg updates will periodically be available for a small fee at www.virtualgettysburg.com.


Experience

Watch the campaign and battlefield tours
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This section describes the different viewing options available while the battlefield tours are playing. We will start at the title screen of the Virtual Gettysburg Program CD-ROM. If you are not sure how to get to the Virtual Gettysburg title screen, please refer to the Installation portion of this manual.

Start Here
When the Virtual Gettysburg title screen appears, click the Next button to start Virtual Gettysburg. You don’t have to touch anything else and Virtual Gettysburg will play from start to finish. Watching the entire CD-ROM straight through - the Intro, the Prelude, the twenty-one battlefield tours and the Gettysburg Address, takes about three hours.

Intro
In the Intro section of the CD-ROM, Gary Kross gives a brief overview of the twenty-one places on the battlefield that he will be taking you. To advance through the intro a day at a time you can select the Next button.

If you listen through to the end of the Intro the presentation will automatically advance to the Prelude. As an alternative, the Tours palette gives you direct access to the entire timeline of the Virtual Gettysburg CD-ROM. So if you want to skip the Intro and go straight to, for instance the Prelude, you can do so by selecting the Prelude button in the Tours palette.

Prelude
The Prelude describes the month-long campaign leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg and lasts about ten minutes. You can use the QuickTime movie controller to pause or restart the Prelude, or to go to a specific location in the narrative. You can also use this controller to adjust the volume.

When the Prelude ends it will automatically advance to the first battlefield tour - McPherson’s Ridge. If, at any time during the Prelude, you wish to jump straight to the battlefield tours, simply make a selection from the Tours palette.

The Battlefield Tours

When a new tour starts the panoramas are set to rotate in sync with the narrative. This is called Auto Rotate. To turn this feature off, select the Auto Rotate button. The button will turn gray and the panorama will no longer follow the narrative. To pan continuously in one direction or the other, use the Left Swing or Right Swing buttons. Select the Auto Rotate button and the panorama will once again follow the narrative.

Whenever a new tour is selected the main tour interface defaults to a view with the Photos and the Maps palettes open.
If we restart the tour you will notice that in the Photos palette there is a historic view from the area of the current tour. As the tour continues, thumbnail photos of people and relevant monuments appear here. In the middle is a thumbnail map of the entire battlefield. The area shown outlined in black depicts the area in the detail map on the right. This is the Interactive Map thumbnail, centered on the location of the current panorama.

There are three ways to advance to a new tour. First, if you watch through to the end of a tour, Virtual Gettysburg will automatically advance to the next tour. Second, you can click on the Next Tour or Previous Tour buttons. The third way, as we have shown before, is to open the Tours palette and choose a new tour.

Gettysburg Address
The video re-enactment of the Gettysburg Address plays automatically after the last tour finishes. You can also play this video at any time by selecting the Gettysburg Address in the Tours palette.

Exit
After viewing the Gettysburg Address video you will automatically advance to the Exit screen where you can read the Credits, Quit or Replay the whole program over again. You can go directly to this screen at any time by selecting the Exit button in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

Help
Next to the Exit button is the Help button. Click here to find out information about the operation of the Virtual Gettysburg interface.


Explore

Stop the tours and explore the battlefield
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This section describes the different options available once a battlefield tour has been stopped. Select any tour from the Tours palette and then click on the Stop Tour button. The narrative will stop and you are free to roam around the battlefield and explore for as long as you wish. When you are ready to rejoin the tour, simply click on the Resume Tour button and Gary will pick up right where he left off. If you wish to start the tour again from the beginning, simply re-select the tour from the Tours palette.

There are many buttons, lists, HotSpots, etc., that when clicked during a tour, will also cause the tour to stop. We will be covering some of these in the following sections. For now we will stop the tour using the Stop Tour button.

Moving within panoramas
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The panoramic video that you watch during the tours is actually a 360-degree panoramic photograph. There are a number of ways to control your view of these panoramas.

1. Rotate the panorama left, right, up or down by clicking and dragging the mouse on the panorama.
2. Zoom in by holding down the Shift key and zoom out by holding down the Control key. The mouse must be within the bounds of the panorama for zooming to work.
3. View the panorama full-screen by clicking the Full Screen button. This same button brings you back to the normal view.
4. The Sights palette contains a list of every sight mentioned in Gary’s narrative. Swing to a view by selecting from the list.

There is a shaded area in the Interactive Map thumbnail that shows the field of view of the current panorama and tracks its movement. Note that you can zoom the Interactive Map thumbnail in and out by clicking the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons. See how the center map updates to show the detail area. You can also close all of the palettes and reveal a large Compass that tracks the movement of the current panorama.

Moving between panoramas
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You can visit just about anywhere on the battlefield thanks to Virtual Gettysburg’s 99 360-degree panoramic photographs. There are a number of ways to move from one panorama to another. Let’s reset the screen. Select any tour from the Tours palette and then click on the Stop Tour button.

1. You can go to a new panorama from within the current panorama by clicking on a HotSpot. To see where the HotSpots are, click on the Show HotSpots button. There are two types of HotSpots. The oval HotSpots represent panoramas and the rectangular HotSpots represent monument photos and historic scenes. We’ll talk about the rectangular photo HotSpots later.

If you roll the cursor over an oval HotSpot the cursor turns into an arrow and a thumbnail photo of the panorama it represents shows up in the Photos palette. Simply click on the HotSpot to go to the new panorama. Note that both maps in the Map palette update when you go to the new panorama. If a tour had been going, clicking on this HotSpot would’ve stopped the tour.

HotSpots work whether or not you can see them. Make them invisible by clicking the Show HotSpots button again. The best way to find a HotSpot when Hotspots are hidden is to keep the cursor right around the horizon line and spin the panorama. Then, when the cursor turns into an arrow you can look in the photos palette to see if this is where you want to go. If it is, then click on the HotSpot.

2. You can go to a new panorama from the Interactive Map. Zoom in the Interactive map thumbnail using the Zoom In button. The green buttons represent panoramas. When you roll over a green button in the map thumbnail, a thumbnail photo of the panorama it represents shows up in the Photos palette. Simply click on the green button to select the new panorama. Note that both maps in the Maps palette update when you go to the new panorama. If a tour had been going, clicking on the green button would’ve stopped the tour.

You can reposition the Interactive Map thumbnail by clicking anywhere on the center map or by dragging the detail area. Then, as before, you can click on a green button in the Interactive map thumbnail to select a new panorama.

3. Finally, you can go to a new panorama from the list in the Panoramas palette. Click on the Panoramas button. You will see a list of all of Virtual Gettysburg’s 99 panoramas. They are listed geographically by area, somewhat following the order of battle. When you roll over a panoramas name in the list, a thumbnail photo of the panorama it represents shows up in the Photos palette. Simply click on the name to select the new panorama. If a tour had been going, clicking on the name would’ve stopped the tour. Now, click on the Maps palette button. Note that both maps in the Maps palette have updated to show the position of the new panorama.

Note that when you leave a tour by selecting a new panorama, the Sights tab and the Info tab disappear.

Getting to The Photograph Gallery
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There are two ways to get to the Photograph Gallery from the main Tours screen, by clicking on a Photo HotSpot in a panorama and by clicking on the Photos palette Full-Screen button. You can also get to the Photograph Gallery from the full-screen Interactive map, but we will show you how to do that later.

1. First let’s look at how you can go to the Photograph Gallery by clicking on a rectangular HotSpot in a panorama. Open the Tours palette, select the Devil’s Den Tour, and then click on the Stop Tour button. Turn on the HotSpots by clicking on the Show HotSpots button. Note that there are oval HotSpots and rectangular HotSpots in this view.

As we discussed before, oval HotSpots take you to different panoramic views. We can see by rolling over the left oval HotSpot that the Triangular Field is right in front of us and by rolling over the oval HotSpot on the right that the Wheatfield is to our up over the rise to our right. Now, put your mouse over the rectangular HotSpot that contains the statue in the middle of the screen. You will see that you have your cursor over a HotSpot for the 4th Battery New York Light Artillery. You will also note that the cursor has now turned into a hand, not an arrow as when over an oval HotSpot. Click on the statue.

You are now in the Photograph Gallery looking at a photograph of the 4th Battery New York Light Artillery. The list of monuments has scrolled to show the 4th Battery New York Light Artillery. You will also see a thumbnail view of the panorama in the upper right corner of your screen. Click on the Go Back button on the bottom edge of the panoramic thumbnail to return to the main Tour screen. Turn off the HotSpots by clicking on the Show HotSpots button.

2. The second way to get to the Photograph Gallery is by clicking on the Full Screen tab in the Photos palette. Let’s restart the Devil’s Den tour by opening the Tours palette and selecting Devil’s Den. As soon as the picture of Dan Sickles appears, stop the tour. Click on the Full Screen button in the Photos palette.

You are now in the Photograph Gallery looking at a photograph of Dan Sickles. The list of People has scrolled to show the name of Dan Sickles.

The Photograph Gallery interface
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There are four ways to select photos in the Photographic gallery - by clicking on a panorama, a list, a map or a Next/Previous button.

1. Let’s first look at how to find a photo from the panorama thumbnail. Open the Tours palette and select the Little Round Top tour. Stop the tour by clicking on the Stop Tour button. Turn the HotSpots on by clicking on the Show HotSpots button. Click on any of the rectangular HotSpots.

You are now in the Photograph gallery. Hold the cursor down over the panoramic thumbnail and hold down the Shift key to zoom in. Move the mouse around and then note select new photographs by clicking on other rectangular HotSpots. This technique makes it easy to find photos of monuments that you can see from the position of the current panorama.

2. You may have noticed that when you select a new photograph by clicking a HotSpot the Monument list updates to show the name of the current photo. This makes it easy to find photos of monuments from the same state. Select a monument photo from the Monuments List. This list contains every monument and marker on the battlefield in this order - Equestrian Statues, Bronze Statues, Commemorative and Memorial Statues, Headquarters Markers, State and Regimental Monuments, Union Markers, Confederate markers and Hospital Markers.

3. You can move through the Monument list by clicking on the Next/Previous buttons underneath the photograph thumbnail. This also works when you are viewing the photographs full-screen. Click on the Full-Screen button. You can still locate photos in full-screen mode using the lists, or you may choose to hide the lists by clicking on the title of the active list. When you are finished, you can return to normal viewing mode by clicking on the Full Screen button.

4. You will notice that the panorama goes blank when you select a photo from the Monument list. This is because you are no longer standing at the location of the current panorama. You are merely looking at photos from a list. To select a new current panorama, open the Panoramas list and choose any of the 99 panoramas. For the purposes of this demonstration, select the Little Round Top, Military Crest panorama. Open the maps palette by clicking on the Maps palette button and notice that the Interactive map thumbnail is centered on the current panorama.

Zoom in by clicking on the Zoom In button twice. You will notice a little arrow next to the green current panorama button in the map thumbnail. Click on this white button to show a view of what it looked like at this location over 100 years ago. You can also click on the red buttons to bring up pictures of monuments in the area. You can also click on the blue buttons to read what the markers in the area say.

Click twice on the Zoom Out button. Look to the west a bit and you will see a small green button next to where it says Slaughter Pen. Click on this button. Zoom in by clicking on the Zoom In button twice. Right above the green current panorama button is a white arrow that represents another historical scene – The Dead in the Slaughter Pen Pond.

Let’s see what this pond looks like close up today. Roll your cursor in the panorama thumbnail until you rotate the field of view towards the pond photo. You will see the pond in the panoramic thumbnail. Click on the Go Back Button. Now you are on the main Tours screen. Click on the Full Screen button and now we are right at a close-up of the Slaughter Pen Pond.

Turn on the HotSpots by clicking on the Show HotSpots button. In the distance you will see a rectangular HotSpot for the 4th Maine Infantry monument. Clicking this HotSpot will take you back to the Photograph Gallery.

Finding Things on the Interactive Map
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There is only one way to open the full-screen Interactive map – by using the Full Screen button on the Maps palette. Select the Emmitsburg Road Tour from the third day’s tours – that’s the bottom row of tours. Click the Stop Tour button. In the Maps palette, click the Full Screen button.

You are now at the full-screen Interactive Map, centered on the current panorama - Emmitsburg Road, Codori Farm. The panorama list is also updated to reflect the current panorama. If you click on a panorama in the panoramas list, the map updates to reflect your choice. The map thumbnail updates as well. You can find a monument or a historic scene the same way. Open the Monument list. Click on any monument. The map will center on the monument you have chosen.

Zoom out two clicks with the Zoom Out button. Select another monument from the list. Note that the map zooms in. Now, zoom in two clicks with the Zoom In button. Select another monument from the list. If you are already zoomed in, the Interactive Map maintains your current field of view.

Going Places from the Interactive Map
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Clicking on a green panorama buttons opens that panorama in the main Tours screen. Clicking on any other button takes you to the Photograph Gallery. Let’s see how that works. Center the map on the town square by clicking in the little dark spot in the middle of the map thumbnail, (just above the center of the thumbnail map.) If your aim is a little off you can drag the detail indicator to find the town center. If you still haven’t found it, open the Panorama list and scroll down a bit until you find The Town Square, The Diamond.

Close any open palettes to get a clearer view. From this spot you can see all of the types of items on the map. Right in the center is a green button representing the Town Center panorama. Click on it. You are now on the main Tours page looking at the Town Center. Open the Maps palette and notice that the map thumbnail is centered on the current panorama. Click Full Screen in the Maps palette. You are now back at the Full Screen Interactive Map.

Close any open palettes again to get a clearer view. Way to the left you can see an arrow representing a historic scene. This one is for John Burn’s House. There are numerous red buttons representing monuments. Note that large red buttons represent both Union and Confederate monuments. The small blue and small red buttons represent Union and Confederate markers, respectively. Look up by the Brickyard and note that some markers have pictures and some have text. Look down at the two small red Confederate Marker buttons. One is a generic Division Marker. The other is a generic Brigade Marker.

Click on any button except a green one. Now you are in the Photograph Gallery. Open the Maps palette and notice that the thumbnail map shows a full battlefield view. This is because there is now no current panorama. Click Full Screen in the Maps palette. That is how you get a full town view of the full-screen Interactive Map. You simply go to it when there is no current panorama.

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