Need 360 degree software - any suggestions?

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Name
Peter
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I'm new to this forum, so Hi to you all.

I have a client who wants some 360 degree photography done of interiors for his website. A quick google has revealed dozens of different applications out there, does anyone have any experience with this, any suggestions?

It needs to be of the 'click and drag' type, so the viewer simply controls the view with the cursor; and requiring NO special software in the viewing machine (so java based or similar?) and must be PC.

Thanks for this.

Hopefully I'll make a contribution to the forum soon, I've loads of experience (old fart) in everything from wars to weddings.

Peter
 
Thanks for the suggestions Stuart, though (pls correct me if I'm wrong) neither quite fit the bill.

'Hugin' seems to be just a panorama stitcher, with no 360 navigation (at least not in the examples that I accessed).

The microsoft ICE is visually perfect, in fact better than I need! but... it requires the installation of dedicated viewing software (Microsoft silverlight) by the person looking at the pics or by being hosted on a specific website. The downside of this is that it's not immediately accessible; in a work environment this installation would have to go through an IT administrator.

Does anyone have experience with 360 degree creating software that requires no level of skill on the part of the viewer to operate (simple click and drag cursor)? Maybe java/flash/...?

Many thanks,

Peter
 
CS4?

I've never tried a 360 myself so don't know how good it is. But it can do them.
 
Peter,

Are you a photographer or are you a website designer?

The reason I ask is that having done a few 360s, and I'm no way near an expert (the website is a dropped project) and I can tell you that it's not as easy as it first looks and is actually a 2 step process.

1) Stitch the photos using something like Hugin or PTGUI to get a warped image covering 360x180 degrees.

2) Put the stitched panoramic photograph into a software tool that creates the web code to display the image useing quicktime / java / flash to I use Pure Tools (all mine use flash at the moment - though you can do multiple versions and do some code to auto selecting based on what the viewer has installed on their browser)

Providing you shoot on manual and manual white balance, one of the biggest difficulties is getting a good stitch - it can even be a little awkward if you have a proper 360 panoramic tripod rotator head (trust me on this!).

If you are a photographer I would suggest you buy the skill in for this job taking a cut, if you are a web designer then don't try. In both circumstances I would suggest that the best way of getting your client the quality they deserve is to contact a local photographer who specialises in this type of image. If you can't find one give me a shout as I am in London towards the end of the month and could help out - though my normal fields are Weddings, Portraits and Events.
 
I can do these if you want to drop me a pm with your details ill call you as it can be far to complicated to explain

Dave :thumbs:
 
I've been playing with Microsoft ICE to do the stitching and then Pano 2 Vr to turn the image into Quick time or flash. I've only done cylindrical panos up to now.
Not played with it for a bit, but must re-visit it again as a client had mooted it recently.
 
Blimey! and there was me thinking this would be a simple exercise... hmmm...
Thanks for all the replies. Still researching so any other ideas welcome. Dave, I'll pm you.
Peter
 
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