Scott Highton, one of the pioneers of virtual reality photography, presents an overview of methods and techniques for photographing VR panoramas.
While VR panoramas have become common for online tours in the real estate and travel industries, where low-quality point-and-shoot technique seems to prevail, Scott focuses on the higher-end and higher-quality approaches that yield memorable and evocative imagery.
Scott’s talk will include discussion of the various capture and post-production technologies available for panoramic imaging today, as well as a look behind the scenes at real-life VR photo shoots.
Orby uses Spherically Projected images in order to display a captured environment in an OrbySPV virtual tour. Here is an outline of other types of panorama projection types in comparison to the spherical, or equirectangular, panoramic projection.
Flat and Planar Panorama Projection
Conventional photographs are considered flat or planar, that means without any form of perspective correction. A planar projection in a viewer lets you pan left and right without the immersive feeling. You’re basically looking onto a flat picture that’s moving left and right.
Cylindrical Panorama Projection
A cylindrical panorama is intended to be viewed as if curved around the inside of a cylinder. You can pan left and right with an immersive feeling as if you were inside the cylinder.
Cubic Panorama Projection
Apple’s QuickTime 5 made this format popular. Cubic images contain 6 separate cube faces, which are in themselves planar images, without any perspective distortion. You can pan left, right, straight up, and down. These images can be easier to edit or modify with image editing software because no distortion is needed or applied.
And, last but not least…
Spherical Panorama Projection
A spherical panorama is intended to be viewed as if projected inside a sphere. You can pan left, right, straight up, and down with an immersive feeling as if you were inside that sphere. Use a type of ultra-wide 6-8mm fisheye lenses with a coverage of more than 180° or a 14-15mm wide angle lenses, or one-shot solutions such as the 0-360 in order to capture these images correctly. When using fisheye lenses then it only takes two or three images to create a full spherical panorama (single-row stitching). When using a wide angle lense you will need a special spherical tripod head to take several rows of pictures and add up and down shots (multi-row stitching).
By using spherically projected images, Orby provides the user the fastest and most interactive experience. The images are easier to work with compared to the Cubic Projection, less processor intensive than the Cylindrical Projection, and of course, more enjoyable than the Planar or Flat Projection.
Have more questions about capturing Spherically Projected images? We have a capturing page here with links to camera types, tripods and lenses, otherwise, just let us know.
There’s a lot of information available on the internet when it comes to creating panoramic images, and while it may seem like a daunting task, it’s actually very easy.
You really do not need any special equipment, but there are a few solutions that do allow you to take pictures that work with Orby in only a few small steps.
Shooting
It’s essential to keep your camera as level as possible while taking your 360 degree images. You take a picture and then rotate the camera to take the next, overlapping by at least 25%, until you have rotated the camera all the way around.
By using a camera such as the 0-360, you can take one shot, and capture the entire scene. The 0-360 outputs images that work well on the web, and are optimized to download quickly into the OrbySPV viewer.
Orby uses Sequential Panoramic Images in order to display a “walk-through” experience. This means that you take images in a linear fashion thru your captured space by capturing one panoramic image, and then by moving the camera 1-3 feet (this can vary) to capture the next. These Sequential Panoramic Images are then used in Orby to create a seamless virtual tour experience.
Stitching
PhotoShop CS3 has some new tools that allows you to stitch images together, and it’s quite intuitive. An article on how it works is available here.
By using one-shot solutions, this step can be completely skipped.
Be sure to check out our tutorials on how to use your newly captured images in Orby, and how to customize the viewer.
Orby was created using the Adobe Director authoring software, but since it’s inception, there have been major improvements and 3rd party software that are making 3D in Flash even easier. Right now we’re in the middle working on Orby 2.0 engine improvements in file size and management, along with a free bundled OrbyADMIN application to assist in managing installations of Orby on your websites. Even better yet, we’re also creating OrbyFLASH, a Flash Component version of Orby utilizing the free open source PaperVision3D engine. As we are in the midst of our development cycle, we’re looking for any suggestions on what you would like to see in the OrbyADMIN or OrbyFLASH updates, just give us a holler either here or using our sales form.
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