360 degree Panoramas

Image created using 360 panorama.

360 Panorama is a fun little application that I found for the iPhone. My experience with panoramas up till now has been to take a series of images and then stitch them together using various stitching programs such as Photoshop, Auto-Stitch etc. Here is an interesting example of a very large panorama that I did last year.

The problem with stitching software is that you have to load all the images into a computer and let the software do the magic of stitching. This means that any problems are identified only after the stitching, when it is too late.

What makes 360 Panorama interesting is that you do the stitching in real time. You launch the app, and a series of grids are displayed. You just move the camera in a 360 degree circle to fill up all the grids, and the app stitches the images as you move the camera. Really amazing.

Once the stitching is complete, you have various options of saving the images.

1. As a proper 360 panorama that requires you to go to the occipital website to view the panorama. Here's an example that I shot while sitting inside the Hard Rock Cafe.

2. As a flat image. This is an example of the 360 degree view as a flat image.

3. And finally, you have the option of flattening out the 360 panorama into a stereoscopic image. This is an example of the same interior shot of Hard Rock cafe flattened into a stereoscopic image.

I love the stereoscopic effect the best, because it is something totally out of the ordinary and definitely fun to experiment with.