The present invention provides electronic methods and apparatus for interactively authoring, sharing and analyzing
digital video content. Methods for authoring include displaying visual data, defining each traversal as a time-based sequence of frames and annotating and storing a
record of the traversal and its associated audio records. Defining the traversal includes interactively panning the visual data by positioning an
overlay window relative to the visual data and zooming in or out by resizing the
overlay window. In alternative embodiments, the visual data may be displayed in a rectangular
layout or a cylindrical
layout. The methods are practiced using an integrated graphical interface, including an overview region displaying the visual data, a detail region displaying current data within the
overlay window, and a worksheet region displaying a
list of previously stored annotated traversal records. In a further aspect, the worksheet region
list of annotated traversal records is published in a
web document accessible via network using a standard
HTML browser, and further annotations may be added by a
community of network users. Analytical methods are also provided in which data markers corresponding to traversal records are plotted against an interactive abstract map enabling users to shift between levels of abstraction in exploring the
video record.