Around Jamaica is about Jamaican images. Not your regular run of the mill stuff, but images from an entirely different perspective. Whether 360° Virtual Reality (VR) panoramas, extreme close up photos, or images from space (not mine!), Around Jamaica aims to bring Jamaica to you in a refreshingly new way.

The highlight of the website still remains the 360° visual presentation of Jamaica by way of immersive panoramic technology. This involves the merging of multiple photographs taken at a particular spot into a single seamless Virtual Reality panoramic image, thus giving the viewer a greater visual scope and appreciation of the scene.

In other words, Around Jamaica allows you to pretend you are standing in actual locations in Jamaica, enjoying full circle views as you turn around!

So come and see Jamaica "up-close" as my special guest on this virtual tour of selected parts of this beautiful country.

Gallery Information

The panorama gallery section begins with images from locations around Jamaica's capital city, Kingston and the Parish of St. Andrew. It is my intention to add to the content of these pages, over time.

Updates of the gallery section will take place every few weeks with the goal of having representation from every parish in the island ( see Map ).

Java Directions

There are two technologies used to view images in the gallery section. The first is Java and the other is Apple Quicktime. First select an image by clicking on either a Java or Quicktime link. If the link selected is Java then the page with the image will open and the java applet will begin loading the image.

The wait to see the image depends on your connection speed and the image size. The java images do not vary much in size, just about 300kb on average. Once the download is complete, the image will appear, spinning horizontally in a 360 degree circle. Click anywhere on the image with your mouse pointer to stop the spinning. Hold down your mouse and drag in any direction to view the entire image.

You can use either the "A" and "Z" keys or the control buttons on the bar below the images to zoom in or out. Most popular browsers come java enabled, and the panoramas are displayed using the browser's Java capabilities. For those few without java support there will be difficulty viewing the panoramas. To enable viewing you can go here to get the Sun Java runtime file, if you don't have Java support on your PC.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 security features may interfere with the Java and the Quicktime files. So you may have to give your browser permission to view the panoramas if you have XP Service Pack 2 installed.

Quicktime Directions

While the smaller, Java-enabled images available on this site may not require a plugin download for viewing, the full screen images will require the Apple Quicktime plugin which can be obtained here.

The Quicktime movie format files are HUGE, generally between 1.5 and 2.5 megs in size and so are preferably viewed by those with a broadband internet connection.

By clicking on one of the Quicktime links, another browser window will launch in full screen mode to show the Quicktime VR movie. For the Quicktime panoramas, the SHIFT and CTRL keys control the zooming features, while dragging your mouse enables panning around the image.

Music Player

Along with the Quicktime panoramas I have inserted some of my very own music instrumentals for your listening pleasure :-) .

A small control for the music player is on the right side of the instruction bar under the images . You can click on it to adjust the volume or turn it off altogether.

I have tried to maintain the minimum acceptable quality sample rate of 128kbps for the audio files. Please note however, that they are still about 3-4 megs in size and so again I emphasize that a decent broadband connection will be necessary to fully enjoy the Quicktime images along with the background music.

Go back to the Galleries >>>