Lin Evans

Hi Guys/Gals, Actually, the post was clearly marked "Off-Topic" and since we don't have an "off-topic" category, I don't find it inappropriate. Xaver - I believe nobody would complain if you were to put in a "plug" (colloquial English for "endorsement") for a photo club or event in Germany, nor would anyone be offended should Patrick or JPD or one of our other French contributors or any contributor from any country for that matter do likewise. We all realize that there are cultural differences in the way our forum contributors feel about off-topic use of a forum. For example, on many French forums which I have audited, it's very common to go off-topic and and it is accepted as normal discourse. On Italian forums, likewise. On some German forums I've audited I find that participants are less tolerant in general of off-topic conversation. Of course there are plenty of exceptions to any "rule" of behavior with cultural differences. What we do need is to understand that there are wide disparities in "humor" among different cultural groups and we all need to be a bit more tolerant of these differences. What we English speaking participants find rude in terms of behavior may not be so to one from a different heritage. Without intending to stereotype, I find it in the nature of many French forum participants on French speaking forums to argue about nearly everything. And this is perfectly normal behavior and doesn't mean they are unfriendly, only being "French." I frequently find that Germans try to be "precise" and "logical," sometimes to the point of being boring to some other cultures who enjoy "poking fun" (colloquial English for "teasing") at each other. The point is that we need to foster a sense of brotherhood here on the forums because we all share the common bond of our love for PTE and our admiration for the developers. So in the sense of this brotherhood and sisterhood, let's continue to be civil and courteous, and perhaps we will all enjoy our time spent here much more. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, There will be a tutorial on how to "use" it, and perhaps samples of several ways it could be used in slideshows. To maximize the use is not something which can really be told and is very dependent on what the user decides to create. Igor has already shown at least two ways it can be used. One is to depict your image in some perspective other than "head-on," and the other showing a "reflection" of the main image in perspective. If you are familiar with the 3D transform features of Photo shop you can see that images can be "flipped" horizontally, vertically or anything in between. I would assume that the 3D shadow already in the beta would follow any between keyframe motion by the object in 3D transform so that lighting would look natural as the object changes dynamically in perspective. Possible scenarios for using this feature include flipping book pages, flipping playing cards, displaying dynamic changes in photo perspective in a slideshow, doing OOB (out of bounds) photos by using the 3D transform and included shadows and borders and duplication of a portion of the original image as a PNG object to extend beyond the borders of the photo, reflections, etc. In short - all the things we can now do with a perspective change in Photoshop plus dynamic changes between keyframes from one perspective to another. It's a very nice concept.... Best regards, Lin

Hi John, Unfortunately, it's easier to tell you how to prevent this in the future than how to fix it now. The program creates a PTE file which contains pointers to the folders and individual files used to create your show. When you move the files, the pointers inside the PTE file are then incorrect and the program has no way of knowing where they have been relocated. How to proceed with a "fix" depends upon how you have created your show. If there are no Objects in layers, it's straightforward. Open PTE and on the Main screen click on your first slide to select it. At the top of the screen next to the left of the "sound" icon is a box which says "Change Image File." Click on this and navigate to where that individual slide is now located and choose it. Repeat this for each slide. If you have slides in the Objects list in layers then also do the following: Open PTE then go to the Objects and Animations screen, click on one of your image names in the Objects to select it and then click on the Properties tab and you will see at the far right a little folder icon. Click on this icon and navigate to the new location of the file and click on it to reset the pointer. Once you have completed the above for all images and have assured that everything is working correctly, then save your pte file. In the future, the very easy way to avoid this is to create a zip file of each of your shows. You do this by clicking on "File" then "Create Backup in Zip." Doing the above gathers all images, sound files, etc., into a single zip archive which can then be moved to any drive or folder and unzipped and "everything" will be located there so PTE will be able to immediately find and run your shows. Unfortunately, there is no "easy" way to undo what you have done unless you want to use the "restore" facility on Windows to go back before you reorganized and make zip archives. Best regards, Lin

Hi Xaver, It's not a "new" method - it was used long ago with early versions (3.xx I believe) before we had PZR to view panos. At that time there was a brief period of interest and a few examples worked pretty well. There is an advantage for systems which can't easily handle pans with extremely large panoramas because of very "jerky" motion. By slicing the original into individual files which each then fit into a single frame without the necessity of panning, the jerky motion is resolved and the "push" transition replaces the need for creating multiple frames (between keypoints) thereby elimination the "video" aspect. In the sample I presented I didn't downsample the files because it was only a test of the principles. For a GPU challenged computer I would have downsampled each of the 10 frames to 1024 by 708 pixels. This would drop the file size considerably and the older PTE "engine" would suffice without PZR being enabled. This would indeed allow a "performance" advantage for such a system as the one Patrick has been using in the past (perhaps still). Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Thanks! That's apparently some trash pixels left over from the original crop of the pano - on the far right side of the last slide only. It's not related to the existing problem of the vertical lines. I could crop it out or mask it off but I don't want to risk loosing a line of pixels on the top or bottom with the crop tool. I don't think for now there is a solution to the thin vertical line on some of the displays and screen resolutions. The fact that Lennart had thin vertical lines between frames at "some" screen resolutions, but not all tends to indicate that it is quite probably an issue of aspect ratio and whatever slight pixel push or pull this may exert on the images. We will let Igor look at it after he has finished with the release and rested up. As I said earlier, it's really not a normal use of the "push" transition, but rather a possible solution for challenged video cards to be able to simulate scrolling a complete panorama, so really not all that important to attend to at this time. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I haven't a clue. Each frame is identical in dimensions except for frame five which has one additional column of pixels so who really knows what's going on... Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, As I said in my earlier post: Of course you should have the black background of the display showing at top and bottom - the images were not designed to fill the aspect ratio of even 4:3 but to allow for better display quality on higher resolution displays. I haven't looked at the edge pixels. I assume that the Photoshop slice tool did as indicated and made each slice equal except for the one pixel difference in width on slice 5 which Photoshop selected as the default to add a single horizontal pixel to. To my knowledge, there is no reason why Photoshop would "feather" any of the images on a slice. The latest link was set to display at 1024x768 so naturally it would display inside that parameter on the horizontal. Any additional horizontal resolution on your monitor should be divided equally left and right, so I would expect to see black completely around the scrolling image on any monitor having greater than 1024 pixels in the horizontal aspect with greater than 768 pixels on the vertical. I can post a windowed version if you would like to test it. Here's a link: http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/panoslicedemowindowmode.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, It looks like this will only work with monitors set up to the same aspect ratio as the original which was created at 4:3. Different cards, different displays, etc., and the common thread for proper join appears to be aspect ratio. I tried creating an MP4 to test and the join lines were visible there so the usefulness is limited to executable output and apparently to a display aspect ratio identical to that used for the creation. Good information! Perhaps when Igor has finished with the latest release, has had a good holiday and some well deserved rest he can look into the reasons why and whether there is an easy "solution." It's really just an experimental use of the "push" transition which wasn't designed to do what I'm asking of it so not truly important as far as the utility of the transition is concerned. Thanks to all for testing and for the feedback! Best regards, Lin

Hi guys, Thanks for the reports! It appears to be a problem generated, as Dave suspected, by aspect ratio differences. The black at top and bottom of screen would be normal and vary a bit among different monitors of differing aspect ratios because the individual images didn't fill the screen on the original done at 4:3 aspect ratio. The original pano had a size of 24161x1671 pixels. The slices (individual images) are each 2416x1671 pixels with the exception of slice 5 which is 2417x1671. This means that theoretically there "should" be a perfect match between segments on the horizontal. I just regenerated the code using "Fixed Size of Slide" and reposted. If you have a chance, could you test it and see if it also has visible lines? Here's the link: http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/panoslicedemooriginal.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, It could be related. I remember somewhere back in the recesses of my neurons that Igor mentioned the "Low Quality of Resize" as a correction for this and I "could" see them before checking the box for each slide. I'll have to test at various other resolutions and see if I can duplicate the problem. I have one monitor set to 1024x768 right now but just tested at 1600x1200 and no trace of lines. It's a mystery. Perhaps more people will test it and we can see if it's isolated to something common to Mike's system components. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Nothing jumps out at me which would cause the lines to show. Are they really "fine" vertical lines, or broad lines? I can see them on the mini-viewer when I play the show, but not on any of my displays or other computers. Obviously, there is something which makes them appear on your system, but it isn't readily apparent what it might be. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Thanks for testing! I'm not sure why it would be any different - all images are identical in size and such, but who knows? Do you see any vertical lines between frames like Mike does? I could experiment with "Thickness of Smoothing Line" but I'm not certain whether or not it even applies to the "Push" transition. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike,That's interesting - I can't see it, but could see it when not using "Low Quality of Resizing." What type display are you using? Is it a CRT or LCD? That "could" make a difference I suppose. Also what resolution is your screen set for? One other thing - which video card are you using? I just checked it on my wife's LCD screen with a different video card and can't see any vertical lines there either so it would be nice to find out what is different about your individual system. Thanks,Lin

Some may remember back several months ago when I demonstrated how to do a 360 by about 120 degree panorama with PTE. It involved careful creation of the original panorama by stitching multiple overlapping frames with the last frame being identical to the first and the entire stitch covering 360 degrees. This, of course, created a very wide panorams consisting of numerous stitched images and a quite large file. Those with sufficient resources in terms of video GPU power, could do this without any problem, but even seeing this on a resource challenged system was problematical. There is a way, however, for such a pano to be viewed on a less than optimal system. It requires that the user either have or have available a version of Photoshop which has the "slice" feature. I can't speak for earlier version than CS, but at least since Photoshop 8 (CS) the slice feature can automatically divide a huge panorama into equally wide divisions. I've found that slicing into 10 individual jpgs works very well. Once you have created the panorama and cropped it to a perfect rectangle, open Photoshop and choose the "slice" tool. On some versions you will find it behind the "crop" tool and available by using the "alt" key to click on the crop tool until an icon of a "knife" is seen. Load the panorama, left click on the "slice" icon then right click on the panorama. From the ensuing menu choose "divide slice" and set the "Vertical" to 10 slices evenly spaced. Next click on "File" (at the top left on the menu task bar) and then on "Save for Web." You will get a warning message stating that the image size exceeds the limits which save for web was designed for, etc... Go ahead and do it anyway because you will very likely not have any problems. Next, Image Ready will open and after a few seconds (see the gas gage) you will see a window offering four tabs at the top. Click on Original then change appropriate settings from the GIF default to JPG and save your 10 images to a folder of your choice. Exit Image Ready and Photoshop. Open PTE and load the 10 images. Next open Project Options and click on the "Main" tab. Set the "Time Interval on Slides" to 12 seconds and click on the "Set for Existing Slides" button. Next click on the "Effects" button and activate "only" the "Push Effect Right-Left" and be certain no other effects are active. Use the little icon at the far right top of the screen to turn off all effects then activate only this one. Set the "Effect Duration" to 12,000 ms (twelve seconds). This effectively keeps the image scrolling continually. So to this point you have created a pano, sliced it into 10 equal portions, saved as jpgs, loaded these into PTE, set the effects to "push right-left," set the time for each slide display to 12 seconds and the effect time also to 12 seconds (12,000 ms). The next step is very important: Go to the Objects and Animations screen and click on the Properties Tab. Place a check mark (click on) Low Quality of Resizing for each of your 10 images. Also, it's a good idea to check "Mipmapping" to help with potential flicker. If you don't check the Low Quality of Resizing, there will be a thin vertical line at the point where otherwise a perfect "join" of adjacent images will take place. Next load image 1 again at the very start of images and set this slide with individual fade-in, fade-out and about 5 seconds of display time. This will give you the first image displayed for about five seconds before scrolling begins. Next load image 10 again at the end of the show and set the display time to about 6 seconds and the effect to fade in/fade out for about 4 seconds. This will prevent the show from immediately ceasing as the last slide finishes scrolling across the screen. Add any image at the very end of the show. Add a black rectangle and set the time for about 5 seconds. Now DELETE the image you just added at the end leaving only the black rectangle. Set the effect to fade in/fade out for the rectangle and the duration to about 3 seconds. This will effectively fade out the last image after it pauses. Save your work the open it up and preview. You will get a very nice continuous pano scroll just as if you had the full single panorama loaded. There will be no apparent break at all between images, no thin vertical line and you will be able to play the pano on your resource challenged system. Even Patrick can play it on his system - LOL. The down side is you can't zoom or scroll up or down, etc., like you could with a full single file panorama, but you can use this method even for smaller panoramas which are too large to easily handle with limited resources. Here's a sample - less than 6 meg zipped exe: http://www.learntoma...osliceddemo.zip Suggestions: Don't oversharpen images for pano scrolling, don't be concerned that at the end the stop is a bit "abrupt" because you really can't control the smoothness like you can with a single frame image. Also don't be too critical of my example which was "quick and dirty" and not the best images in the world. These were taken before sunup in a hurry and some are too sharp causing "glitter" etc. When done with a really good pano, this can be an excellent way of displaying it. You may also place such a pano in the midst of other slides handled conventionally and while the pano is still scrolling near the end, go to the next slide to avoid a bit jerky end..... Best regards, Lin Addendum - It appears that this method will only work properly (without fine vertical join lines) on systems using the same aspect ratio (in this case 4:3) on which the show was developed for. So the utility is limited. The join lines will also be visible should one create an MP4, DVD, etc., so just consider it experimental for the time being.

Hi Eric, Thanks - it's a tough time but we will keep plugging away.... Perhaps - we will have to discuss it with Igor and see what the time frame might be before making a decision. The developers really need a holiday to recharge their batteries and think about future development needs and directions. They have been overwhelmed recently with requests for features and changes, etc., and really need some time to kick back and relax without the stress of both developing and addressing issues. Personally, I believe that with all the new features and "major" changes and improvements that the moniker version 6.0 should be considered rather than 5.7. All requirements for a major change and new "version" have been satisfied. Things such as multiple display support, native MacIntosh output, mask creation and adjustment, borders creation and canvas adjustment, 3D transformation, 3D shadows, unlimited help and information windows, text vectorization, etc., all add up to a new version number in my book! When the next release comes, whatever it may be called, I think it's time for new documentation and user guide production. I think the modular concept will take care of things like the addition of new sound controls, etc, and there will be no real need to wait for changes in order to get started on a new "unofficial" user guide. Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, You may get your wish soon. Unfortunately, it's not really possible to "update" the existing unofficial user's guide because of extensive changes to PTE which are not only necessary, but quite desirable additions, modifications, etc. To do justice to the new features and to help beginners and even advanced users alike, it's really necessary to do a re-write. The problem with "updates" is that even when there are only minor modifications in menu structures, etc., they greatly impact documentation because they alter page numbers, reference numbers, diagrams, etc. In fact, many times it's "easier" to do a complete rewrite than to attempt to "update" existing information. Jeff and I (and Ray) spent many tedious hours on the last unofficial user guide and still missed a few important issues. Shortly after we finished, a new version of PTE became available which made some of our screen captures and diagrams obsolete. Since that time we have actually progressed to what I believe is a totally new version of PTE rather than an iterative update. There are still some exciting new features which have not yet been totally described and certainly not yet been officially introduced as usable beta features. Once all the beta features for the latest "version" of PTE have been included and the newest version "release" has been officially blessed, then hopefully I will have time to devote to a complete rewrite of the manual. I haven't discussed it with Jeff yet, so I don't know what his schedule looks like, but right now I'm about to loose my home to foreclosure which means I will soon be forced to move in (or possibly before) early October. This will be a major time sink and will make it difficult to work on this. Between the move which will involve liquidating 20 years of household goods, ranch equipment, vehicles, etc., and my wife's current serious health issues, my time will be severely limited. Hopefully we will be settled by the end of October and probably PTE will be much closer or already released and I will have some time to devote to doing a rewrite. I'm considering a new format for the rewrite by putting it into a "modular" rather than unified template. This may have some significant advantages in the future by making periodic updates much easier to accomplish. Rather than indexing the entire document, there would be individual stand-alone sections each having their own index and reference tables and without an overarching structure. The overview would contain a glossary and an index of terms, etc., which would reference individual module content. This overview would then be periodically reviewed for appropriate reference links and when new features were added, they could be simply referenced, annotated and explained in new "modules" rather than trying to fit them into a huge single document which would adversely affected changes and additions are made to the base program. I offer up this idea for forum discussion and perhaps we can reach a consensus before beginning on new documentation? Best regards, Lin

Hi Jonathan, Yes, in a couple ways. If the slideshow has only a few slides, you can go to the Objects and Animations screen, click on the file in the Objects list, click on the "Properties" tab at the top, then go to the little folder on the far right, click there and navigate to the current location. Then click on the file in its new location. Repeat for the other files then save the PTE file. The above is the "hard way." The "easy way" is as suggested by Maureen and by me on the other posts. Just create the zip archive and extract it into a new folder. Open PTE and navigate to the new folder and open the PTE file there and everthing including all the files will be neatly collected into the new folder. You can always use this method to move everything pertaining to this individual show except, of course, the PicturesToExe application software, to any computer. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jonathan, This is really an easy situation to resolve. In PTE go to "File" then "Create Backup In Zip" This will gather all necessary files into a zip archive which you can transfer to any computer running PTE. Just create a folder on the external drive and unzip (extract) the files into that folder and everything will be right in one place. You can then use PTE Video builder to burn the DVD on the other system. Of course this assumes you have PTE on the other computer. I just noticed that Maureen has suggested the same thing on your other post.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Dom, I agree that it would be "much" easier if there were a click box which could automatically set the "option" to separate all keyframes at once just as linear "glues" all keyframes simultaneously. Of course we do need it to be an "option" and set as the "default," because there are times when we want to have some keyframes glued and some separated for certain types of animations. It's rare, but PTE gives us more versatility this way and sometimes, however rarely, we need the option. I too have always wondered why smooth and accelerate were not also automatically separated as the default when chosen. Oh, by the way, the logic is correct as you see it now. "Click Here to Separate" implies that the keyframes are presently "glued." "Click here to Glue" implies that the keyframes are presently "Separated." I realize that this can be confusing, but it is logical as it is. Having the "option" set as a "default" to handle smooth and slow with automatically separated keyframes simultaneously is a great idea. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Having looked at the PTE file now, I think your best bet is to leave everything at linear for this animation. Though there were a couple places where you had mixed linear and non-linear, I was not able to make it work properly by setting everything to smooth and separating all keyframes. One particular place was on, I believe, the first Yourpic02, where you had separated keyframes for pan and zoom but not for rotate. This is evident when you see "custom" in either p, z, or r, and "smooth" on one of the others. Even though this was corrected, there were still issues. One of the problems with animations which use separation of the X and Y values such as in this one, is that timings can get very tedious. Whenever you see late "adjustments" in position of images which are returning from some pan/zoom or rotate to a predetermined position it's almost always the result of non-linear clashing with either a linear function or the position of keyframes not quite matching at some point along the timeline. In your case I couldn't find the error, but it's a complex animation and easy to overlook a single keyframe mismatch in precise time. You might want to ask Dom if he could look at it because he does many more of these type animations than I do and is undoubtedly more qualified to comment on this one than I am. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, You mentioned that you had set smooth "between the fourth and fifth keyframes" - that's why I discussed linear versus non-linear motion. You will get strange issues unless you use smooth with separation between all keyframes on the same animation. Normally, when you "separate" at any keyframe, the separation will apply to all keyframes. In order to set a different action at a single keyframe it's necessary to not click on "separate here" but rarely would you want to do that because you will get strange results. Also, the reason it's suggested that you set any non-linear motion for not only pan and zoom, but also for rotate as well, is to assure that in the event you "may" have inadvertently slightly rotated an image by positioning manually (it's "very" easy to do this by mistake) you will not get strange results. Without seeing the actual PTE file, it's very difficult to guess at what may be causing the issue, but it's almost certain that it has to do with a single "separate here" not being clicked. Sometimes it's easy to miss one, especially if there are many keyframes and the one missed may not be visible except by using the scroll bar when performing the clicks on "separate here". Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, I just sent you an email with modifications to your PTE file. The problem, as I see it, was that you had a non-linear motion set for one slide and linear for others. Visualize what is happening with linear and non-linear motion with this scenario: Imagine a "race" to a start and finish line between two images with different motions. The first image has linear motion, meaning that it jumps out of the start blocks with a given speed, maintains that speed until near the finish line then jars to a stop. Imagine that the second image starts much more slowly and accelerates to a given speed, maintains that speed for a given time then smoothly slows to a stop. The "rules" for the race are that both contestants must start and finish at precisely the same times. This then means that during the "race" the smooth images must catch and "pass" the linear image in position somewhere along the race course because the linear image will be gaining on the smooth image while the smooth image is slowing to a stop. As this relates to your issue, if one image is "smooth" while the other images are "linear" then there must be positional compensation somewhere in order for them to finish together. That compensation is near the "end" of the race when the smooth image arrives "early" because of its greater speed in motion along the course, then must "wait" for the linear images to catch up. This accounts for the hesitation near the end and the "sliding" into position. Hopefully, this makes sense. Best regards, Lin

Hi Umberto, Another quick example of what I was trying to verbally depict. You will notice that from the perspective of the "camera" (your eyes, in this case), the background slowly pans from right to left. The intermediate bubble (further from the eye) moves from left to right, while the closer bubble moves more rapidly from left to right. The closer the object to the eye or camera, the more rapid the change in motion. http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/3dperspective.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Umberto, Right now, in the current "to be released" iteration of 3D transform, I don't think you will be able to do what you want easily, if at all. The current iteration is to rotate a 2D object in 3D space. What you want to achieve is best done by rotation of a 3D object in 3D space along with camera movement perspective. It "may" be possible to simulate depth, but this would require adjusting objects in a very complex way to attempt to simulate camera movement as in the After Effects demonstration. I'm not saying that it couldn't be done, just that it would be very time consuming to try to accurately simulate what is easily done with After Effects and Photoshop. Photoshop version CS4 Extended also has some of this capability in setting up 3D simulation by allowing keyframes on camera movement, so it might be possible to create some sequences there, export them as PNG files with transparency and use them along with 3D transform to approximate what you want to achieve. One way to achieve what you want in PTE is to use my template which will allow you to create a video in any 3D software which can export individual PNG frames with alpha channel (transparency) which make up this video. Then you can simply name them appropriately (image001.png - image1800.png sequentially) and the template will run this as if you were able to actually run the video in PTE. The up side is that you can actually achieve whatever you can export from the video whether by decompiling individual frames or by exporting individual png frames. The down side is that it is extremely memory intensive and many GPU (video cards) simply can't handle the loading, especially if the individual files are larger than about 500 pixels on a side. To get full screen images such as shown in the After Effects demo, would be nearly an impossible task until PTE can actually handle real video clips. Of course you could run Boxig's "show video.exe" with "hidetaskbar.exe" but there is not a lot of control and you can't really run anything else in the background simultaneously. The bottom line is that in time, Igor may be able to make PTE run real 3D in 3D space and then you could export from the software used to create the simulation and animate it in PTE, but right now it's just not possible. You may remember, a couple years ago, I made a small demo of doing something like you are describing. What I presented were photos of a mushroom taken from different positions and "sequenced" do simulate 3D. By playing the sequences progressively the mushroom stayed in the same position while the background view changed back and forth. This is what you are describing on a small scale. But this really has little or nothing to do with the new 3D transform feature, though it "might" be used to add some realism. This can easily be done without 3D transform. It simply requires multiple frames of the subject background taken from slightly different positions while the main subject as a separate PNG object with alpha channel stays constant. This, of course, could be simulated using these Photoshop CS4 extended capabilities, or with After Effects. Then individual frames could be sequenced either as with my template with the images as objects under a single slide, or with individual slides. If this is what you want to do, then it's only necessary to create the individual frames and animate accordingly. If you could describe the actual sequence you have in mind, perhaps I or someone else on the forum could help you realize it. Here's a link to the sample I referenced: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/3Dsample.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Umberto. It's not that type of 3D where you have Z axis depth, but rather more like the 3D transform in Photoshop where you can change the observed perspective by rotating an object on the Z axis. Like Photoshop prior to version CS4 extended, you see the perspective of the edges of the object but not Y axis depth. For example, when you hold a piece of 8x11 inch paper in front and parallel to your body then rotate the top away from you. The sides appear to converge toward the top and spread apart toward the bottom. As you continue to rotate in the same direction, eventually you see only a thin line. As you continue to rotate you now see the back side of the paper and what was the bottom now becomes the "top." In effect, you have caused a vertical "flip" of the image. Likewise if you were to rotate the object left to right or right to left you would eventually perform a horizontal "flip" of the image. Now imagine if the paper were transparent so that you could actually see an image printed on one side through the back. This is what the 3D transform will allow. Of course you also have the ability to use keyframes so that these changes in perspective are "dynamic" and PTE can create all intermediate images just as if you were looking at the motion in real time with a real 2D object such as a piece of paper. Now further, you will be able to attach a 3D shadow which will perform as a real shadow might perform with a single source fixed light which you could move and place at any of 360 degrees and the "paper" were casting a shadow upon a flat surface behind. This is how the 3D transform feature will work in PTE. Of course you also can control normal Ken Burns effects of PZR simultaneously with any object so that we have some significant new power with PTE! Best regards, Lin