VR (virtual reality) Photography is widely being adopted by a range of industries including:

• Tourism & Hospitality
• Real Estate
• Transportation
• Entertainment
• Education
• and many more..

What makes VR Photography special?

A photographic VR shows a complete 360 degree environment in a single seamless, interactive image that the user can view as though they were turning their head to see everything around, above and below them.

There is no better way in my opinion to show a complete space or environment!

A VR photograph is typically created by capturing a series of images photographically of different viewpoints on a fixed rotational axis. These images are then combined using special software to form a single image that is used to create an interactive 360 degree view. Other types of cameras that rotate while capturing an image create a panoramic image in a single photo.

Did you know that Panoramic photography is over 150 years old? And 360 degree panoramic paintings are even older!

You can learn more about panoramic photography by visiting the following links:

• A Brief History of Panoramic Photography (Library of Congress)
• About Panoramic Photography (Wikipedia)
• Excellent In-Depth Guide to Digital Panoramic Photography (IATH, University of Virginia)

Approximated illustrations below can show you some of the current ways these images are captured in order to make a complete panoramic VR image:

Multiple images using a wide-angle lens. This common method requires shooting one or more rows of overlapping images using a very wide-angle rectilinear lens. The images are then combined using special software that "warps" and then "stitches" the images together to form a single image.
Multiple images using a fish-eye lens. An alternative to the above is to use a fish-eye lens which captures an even wider angle of view. A single row of overlapping images along with a top and bottom view are shot, after the fisheye's distortion is corrected, the images are combined using computer software to stitch and blend the images into a single view.
A single image using a rotating scanning camera. A camera specialized for shooting panoramic images, will rotate using a motor while a slit of light passes through the lens onto the digital CCD. This creates a single panoramic image completely void of stitching artifacts and loss of detail due to image warping and correction. These types of images/cameras are used when image quality is of highest importance. The Panoscan camera I use creates images in this manner.

What Happens Next?

After these VR images are created. They are viewed using special software like Quicktime VR or several variations of JAVA Applets like PTViewer, Immervision's Java VR Viewer etc. Lately there are also Flash versions of players that can view these VRs as well.

These applications present a corrected view of the image which the user can then navigate by turning the view side-to-side and up and down. You can also zoom in or out of the image to get a wider or closer look!

Click on the image below to see the VR using Quicktime VR