How can I view a 360° equirectangular photo interactively on a desktop?
Asked 8/16/2019
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2 answers
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I have a 360° photo/spherical panorama stored as an equirectangular image. In many desktop apps it only appears as a flat, stretched panorama. What software or workflow can I use on a desktop computer to pan and zoom around the image interactively, either offline or in a browser?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
6y ago
2 Answers
5
There are a number of free 360° photo/video viewers for desktop (courtesy of the major 360° camera makers):
Some of the above also have iOS/Android versions as well which may prove helpful.
Alternatively many of the online photo hosting services support interactive 360° images, if you're willing to upload them:
Originally by user26212. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user26212
6y ago
0
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You need a viewer that understands 360°/equirectangular panoramas. A normal image app will usually just show the flattened rectangle.
Desktop options mentioned by users include:
- GoPro VR Player
- Insta360 Player
- Ricoh Theta app
- Kaiser Baas X360 app
- FSPViewer (free; available for Windows, Linux, and macOS)
If you want browser-based viewing, the image usually needs to be wrapped in an interactive format such as HTML5 (older tools may also export Flash or QuickTime VR). Tools like PTGui can export to QuickTime VR, and Pano2VR or krpano can convert an equirectangular image into an interactive panorama viewer.
Online services can also display 360° images interactively after upload, including Google Photos and Flickr, often using embedded metadata to recognize the file as a panorama.
So the short answer is: use a dedicated 360° viewer/player locally, or upload/export the image into a web-friendly interactive panorama format.
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