Viewing and Publishing

Last updated on 2024-12-17 | Edit this page

Estimated time: 15 minutes

Overview

Questions

  • How do we view and publish spherical panorama photographs?

Objectives

  • Explain different viewing and publishing methods for spherical photography

Types of projections

When we want to visualise spherical panorama photographs, we go through the process of mapping the result on a curved surface.

This allows the viewer to explore the image by turning around the virtual camera left, right, up and down.

There are different types of projection for mapping panorama images onto a flat surface, including:

  • Equirectangular
  • Rectilinear
  • Cylindrical
  • Mercator
  • Fisheye
  • Sinusoidal
  • Stereographic

The stitching software that we used for this workshop returns 360 images with an Equirectangular projection, however you can further learn about the technicality of the different types of projections.

For advanced learning purposes, it is also advisable to experiment with applications such as PTGui or PTAssembler. They give full control in creating panorama images from single flat photographs.

There are several methods for viewing and publishing panorama images:

Flat panoramic images (no distortion - orthogonal)

Usually, these images are considered panoramic views on the horizontal axis but cannot be joined to form a full 360 spherical representation.

They are useful for building measuring purposes and landscape representations. All modern compact cameras they have a mode to produce this kind of image by automatically stitching several photographs taken from a single point of rotation.

Panorama of the courtyard of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, in Tunisia. This huge mosque, also called Mosque of Uqba, was founded in 670 A.D. It dates, in its present form, from the 9th century (under the Aghlabid dynasty). The Great Mosque of Kairouan is the oldest in the Muslim West., YiTe LAI from Joensuu, Finland, under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Panorama of the courtyard of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, in Tunisia. This huge mosque, also called Mosque of Uqba, was founded in 670 A.D. It dates, in its present form, from the 9th century (under the Aghlabid dynasty). The Great Mosque of Kairouan is the oldest in the Muslim West., YiTe LAI from Joensuu, Finland, under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons


Fish-eye lens images

Usually they go up to 180 degrees of field of view. They can be mapped onto a 3D viewer after processing them with stitching software or with a viewer that can project spherical 360 images.

Fisheye lens Photography In Iran-Kashan City-Mostafa Meraji-2016-free Pictures-Canon EF 8-15mm lens 11, Mostafameraji, under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Fisheye lens Photography In Iran-Kashan City-Mostafa Meraji-2016-free Pictures-Canon EF 8-15mm lens 11, Mostafameraji, under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons


Spherical panorama images (with distortion)

These are the unwrapped versions of the images resulting from stitching the photograph taken with a fish-eye lens. They can be fully mapped onto a 360 viewer.

360° Panorama einer Bahnstrecke bei Nebel, DerMische, under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
360° Panorama einer Bahnstrecke bei Nebel, DerMische, under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons


Mapping images onto a 360 viewer

There are several commercial and non-commercial viewers for mapping 360 photographs.

We are going to use the Pannellum Online viewer for its simplicity and the possibility of directly publishing 360 images online. The viewer was developed by Matthew Petroff and the full publication can be found: https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01628

Go back to the setup page and choose one of the church’s images by right clicking on it and getting the link, then paste it to the viewer.

To view your own produced image please upload them to a site that supports CORS, e.g. Imgur and get the link.

360 Panorama of St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church Brighton (UK), DSVMC University of Brighton, under DSVMC, via D4Science