How do I tag a panorama so Facebook shows it as cylindrical instead of a full 360° sphere?
Asked 7/28/2016
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I have a panoramic image that I want Facebook to display with left-right panning only, rather than as a full spherical 360 photo that also allows looking up and down.
Facebook is currently interpreting it as a full equirectangular 360° panorama. What metadata should be written so it is treated as a cylindrical panorama instead?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
3
Make sure that you have ProjectionType="cylindrical" rather than ProjectionType="equirectangular" in your EXIF. You must also specify the HFoV and VFoV (horizontal and vertical fields of view) for the image. The documentation you linked to has the following example exiftool command to define a cylindrical panorama:
# 120º h_fov, 86º v_fov
exiftool -FullPanoWidthPixels=18000 -FullPanoHeightPixels=9000 -CroppedAreaLeftPixels=6000 -CroppedAreaTopPixels=2350 -CroppedAreaImageWidthPixels=6000 -CroppedAreaImageHeightPixels=4300 -ProjectionType=cylindrical file.jpg
A 360ºx180º equirectangular panorama is a full 360º spherical view that includes the top and bottom of the sphere, that's why it's interpreted as such by most viewers. There is no such thing as a 360ºx360º pano.
The panorama format that's limited to side-to-side pans are cylindrical panoramas, which typically don't have a 2:1 aspect ratio, but are usually quite a bit wider and shorter, say, 4:1 or 6:1 aspect ratio. The Mark Zuckerberg Facebook example you link to is a cylindrical pano.
A cylindrical pano usually looks like a long thin horizontal strip when viewed all at once. But more importantly, it is completely missing the zenith/nadir information, so you cannot tilt up to view the ceiling or down to view the floor.
Not all pano viewers can handle both equirectangulars and cylindricals. But if FaceBook's can, it's also probable that simply making sure your panorama does not have a 2:1 aspect ratio is all that's required.
Originally by user27440. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user27440
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Use panorama metadata that identifies the image as cylindrical, not equirectangular. A full 360° × 180° equirectangular image represents a complete sphere, so viewers will normally allow panning vertically as well as horizontally.
Key points from the community answer:
- Set ProjectionType="cylindrical"
- Include the pano crop/full-size fields such as:
FullPanoWidthPixelsFullPanoHeightPixelsCroppedAreaLeftPixelsCroppedAreaTopPixelsCroppedAreaImageWidthPixelsCroppedAreaImageHeightPixels
- Also define the horizontal and vertical field of view appropriately
Example exiftool syntax given:
exiftool -FullPanoWidthPixels=18000 -FullPanoHeightPixels=9000 -CroppedAreaLeftPixels=6000 -CroppedAreaTopPixels=2350 -CroppedAreaImageWidthPixels=6000 -CroppedAreaImageHeightPixels=4300 -ProjectionType=cylindrical file.jpg
In short: if you want side-to-side-only viewing, don’t tag the file as a full 360×180 equirectangular sphere. Tag it as a cylindrical panorama with the proper pano crop and FoV metadata.
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