IPIX (IPIX Corporation.) was an imaging technology company
headquartered in
Reston, Virginia. One of its trademark products was visual
technology allowing the stitching of panoramic images into 360°x
180° field of view video and photography. The company's stock was
traded on
NASDAQ
(IPIXQ).
Their .ipx format was for a time a widely used virtual image type on
major hotel and real estate websites. A recent product, iPIX Interactive
Studio, could create not only their proprietary format, but
QuickTime
Cubic VR images, Equirectangular and Cylindrical Projections as
JPEGs that can
be viewed with
Helmut Dersch's freeware Java PTViewer, Shockwave w3d files,
VRML files and
X3D files. Two
plug-ins are available that can create images in the RealViz format and
iSeeMedia's PhotoVista format.
Ipix patented its Omniview motionless camera orientation system,
and has claimed that this patent covered techniques for creating 360-degree
images using two fish-eye photographs. It pursued an active policy of filing
patent law suits against any company or individual that develops similar
technologies (Helmut Dersch and the company Infinite Pictures are the most
notable examples) and also lawsuits against photographers using software it
considered to be infringing its patents. The company was widely criticized
for these lawsuits. Among the arguments against the patent claims were the
existence of prior art, and that these lawsuits have acted to put a damper
on the development of interactive immersive image technologies. It was also
argued that some of their claims are too broad, suggesting that any
geometric remapping of a fisheye image is their invention
[1]. In the end it turned out that Ipix itself was in violation of a
prior patent held by Pictosphere, and in court attempted to use the same
defense that had been used against them in the past. They lost the suit.
On July 31, 2006, Ipix filed for
bankruptcy after posting a
3.8 million dollar loss for the first part of 2006. They had posted a
$347 million loss in the tech crash in 2001.
On January 19, 2007, it auctioned off a block of 28 patents for $3.6
million, to an anonymous bidder which later revealed itself to be
Sony.[2]
On March 29, 2007 Minds Eye View won the auction for the remaining iPIX
assets, including the trademark name, software and websites. Quotes my MEV
president Ford Oxaal suggest the iPIX brand and products will continue to be
available.
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/business/article/0,1406,KNS_376_5449128,00.html
Several alternate technologies exist to create and display Virtual
Reality images, including Quicktime and Java-based applets, but with Nikon
discontinuing the greater-than-180° fisheye lenses (essential for 2 fisheye
stitching) for their Coolpix line of cameras, the 2 fisheye capture method
is likely to fade from popularity. The only remaining greater-than-180°
fisheye lens still being made is priced at $4,500
Ipix Free Zone
IPIX