360 degree photographs

[Admiral208]

Hi everyone.

 

Im having a bit of an update on the schools website and i would like to include a number of 360 degree photographs of different areas of the school. The ones that you can drag left and right to see everthing around.

 

Is there a way of doing this with a digital camera and some software, do i need any special hardware?

 

I was hoping for something thats cheap (free) and easy to use.

 

Anythin will do.

 

Many Thanks

 

James

[OutToLunch]

There's probably a 'proper' way to do it, but I just stand very still, spin round in a circle with the digital camera whilst taking lots of photos then lob it into Autostitch -

 

AutoStitch

 

Crop the output to have a neat top and bottom and viola, a stupidly huge 360 degree flat photo - haven't tried to make it scrollable, but I assume you'd just need a simple image loader with wrap in Flash...

[sted]

There are a few software packages that will stitch photos together intelligently. It's been a while, so I've forgotten which ones, but look and you shall find.

 

However, the most important thing to remember is switch your camera to manual mode. If you leave your camera in automatic mode, every photo will have slightly (or not so slight) different exposures, colour balances, contrast, etc. It's really important to meter for an average scene, then lock these settings in manually. The results will be seamless.

 

if you have a canon (compact slrs dont have this) they have a stitch mode on them that shows the previous pic on the screen so you can line the next pic up with some overlap to get a good match. They also come with s=their own stitching software thats pretty good

 

 

other than that use a tripod and take your time and be prepared to make some odd photos where joins just go wrong. and for some huge files

[markcuk]

maybe this one

 

PanoramaStudio 2 | PanoramaStudio Website

[ICT_GUY]

360 Precision, Panoramic Tripod Heads, Virtual Tours, Stitching Software and Hardware, Precision and adjustable panoramic heads

 

This is how you do it properly, you need a special tripod so that the camera turns around a central axis where its CCD is located.

 

Or

 

One-Shot Virtual Tours, 360 degree panoramas! Amazing Virtual Tour lens and software. and buy one of their one shot mirror adapters for dslr.

 

Or you pay someone to do it for you

[garethEds]

Hi everyone.

 

Im having a bit of an update on the schools website and i would like to include a number of 360 degree photographs of different areas of the school. The ones that you can drag left and right to see everthing around.

 

Is there a way of doing this with a digital camera and some software, do i need any special hardware?

 

I was hoping for something thats cheap (free) and easy to use.

 

Anythin will do.

 

Many Thanks

 

James

 

Windows Live Photo Gallery will do it. You can download it from Microsoft. Funny you should ask because we spent a few days looking for something and then this turned up.

 

We've just stiched a picture together of our school choir.

 

Worked a treat.

 

And it you want to do it in Flash then this website has a tutorial:

 

http://flashexplained.com/banners/creating-a-360%C2%B0-panoramic-view-ad-banner/

 

GJE

[Jamo]

I would try this out as well

 

Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor (ICE)