360 panoramas as "VR"

Started by bigben, July 10, 2017, 09:01:35 PM

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bigben

It's curious that when I started photographing 360° panoramas it was VR, but now that we have real 3D VR I think of them more as panoramic images... and yet every reference to VR here points to 360° panoramas.  For the most part it's just semantics BUT when it comes to online viewing it is perhaps a useful distinction to at least keep in mind.  VR viewers for displaying equirectangular images suck IMO when compared to viewers that actually project the image as a sphere.  Telling views are the zenith and nadir, but you'll also see straight lines start to get warped more as you look up e.g. the viewer used on NWDA (http://www.nwdastore.com/360-gallery/). See screengrab below...  an awesome panorama that brings to mind the "rocket sled car" urban legend ;) 

Compare this to a traditional spherical panorama viewer: https://www.360cities.net/image/candor-chasma-peru  (It's actually on Mars but I geotagged it with the right coordinates... auto titling and all that...) and look straight down.  They also support image tiling so you can show off your renders at really high resolution.  Maybe something to keep in mind when you're looking at presenting your work.  360 Cities use KRPano which has a number of options from multires https://krpano.com/html5multires/ to VR https://krpano.com/krpanocloud/webvr/?v=119pr10 and video e.g. https://d8d913s460fub.cloudfront.net/krpanocloud/video/airpano/index.html?v=119pr10&html5=only all in HTML5.  The hardest part for photographers is creating the content, but TG has a great spherical camera (including STEREO) that makes generating the required files easy.

Dune

You directed me to PTGui, which does the same, doesn't it? It splits an equirectangular into a set of images, which are stitched together online in the browser. I put this online that way: http://www.ulco-art.nl/Bazel-SPH.htm

bigben

Yes, PTGUi has it's own viewer. You can import a render and export the required code. These pano viewers have been under development for a long time and I can assure you that pano photographers are very picky about distortion ;)

bigben

Quote from: Dune on July 11, 2017, 03:51:01 AM
I put this online that way: http://www.ulco-art.nl/Bazel-SPH.htm

You might wamt to upgrade to the latest version you can which may have an improved viewer. I have one that is a similar version and it's ok on a PC but gets a bit funky an an iphone
http://files.digitisation.unimelb.edu.au/playpen/roogle-map/

luvsmuzik

Quote from: Dune on July 11, 2017, 03:51:01 AM
You directed me to PTGui, which does the same, doesn't it? It splits an equirectangular into a set of images, which are stitched together online in the browser. I put this online that way: http://www.ulco-art.nl/Bazel-SPH.htm

This works great on my 4S and Ipad mini, but I have an awesome connection. Wonderful work!