One Stop Under

This review of the Kaidan 360 One VR MK/II contains a good discussion about 360 degree lenses, how they work, what they look like, and how you can use software like PhotoWarp to process the circular 360 degree photos into panoramas and create ‘virtual reality tours’.

The basic concept of the “one-shot” 360 degree lenses is that they have a mirror element that the camera shoots into. This mirror reflects a full 360 degrees, eliminating the need to rotate the camera and shoot multiple photos. This creates images that are circular when viewed unprocessed. A Photoshop plug-in or stand alone processing program is then run that essentially slices and “unfolds” the image into a long narrow panoramic format. Programs like Quicktime or Java can then read these files in such a way that they are played as a continuously rotating movie.

While the resolution of the final image won’t be as high using a 360 degree lens as it can be using the more traditional stitching methods, these lenses rate highly on the convenience factor. Capture the image in a single frame, and then feed that one file into PhotoWarp and you’ve got your final product. You could batch process a whole stack of photos overnight without any of the labour involved in stitched panoramas. That’d be a great time-saver for people like real estate agents wanting to create QTVR tours for web sites.

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