360° panorama pictures for reference purposes.

THE REQUIREMENTS

For me, reference images just don't cut it when I'm trying to capture the atmosphere of an environment. They work when you're capturing details and individual objects, but they don't quite take you back to that one particular place...

I mean, it's like you're there

After having stumbled upon a few very unique places I wasn't quite supposed to be, I set out to find a way to capture the general atmosphere of an environment while still preserving detail, quickly.

The answer was obvious: 360 degree panoramas, where you can look all around you, and zoom in and out.

In this article I'll explore some methods of achieving these panoramas, look at different software and give some tips and tricks.

I was looking for a run'n'gun style method, no expensive setups, valid in all situations.

THE METHODS

If you want to have perfect 360 degree panormas, and you have the budget, there's really only one option: you buy a rig. There's simple tripod mounts, and there's portable setups that carry multiple DSLR's with fisheyes that let you take a panorama in one click.

I was looking for something that was a little simpler.

smartphone: 

 pros: 
-small equipment
-easy to use

 cons: 
-slow (depending on model)
-mediocre results 


If you have a smartphone, there's various apps that allow you to use the accelerometer in your phone to guide you in taking your photosphere.

(c) google

In all of googles examples it works fine, but it becomes very tricky to use when you are confined to a small space. It works well in big halls or open space, but not in rooms.

This is of course because if parallax.

If your second image is taken from a slightly different position than the first, foreground and background elements might appear in different positions relative to one another. The program is unable to stitch the photos together. or will do so poorly.

These kind of artifacts are the result:

You're extra prone to getting these kind of parallax errors when you're standing with your legs closed holding a phone close to your face swirling around.

dslr:

 pros: 
- good results
- lots of flexibility in post

 cons: 
- slow
- demanding process

from video:

 pros: 
- fast
- easy

 cons: 
- unpredictable results
- hard to make changes

You can also create a panorama from a video.
I don't really recommend it, but it's okay-ish for personal use, and it's relatively fast.

Microsoft has some software called Image Composite Editor.

It can give some really good results, but it's highly unpredictable
All you do is drop in the video and let the software do it's thing. After that, you have no more control over it.

You can change the projection and crop it, but other than that you have little control.

TIPS

 sfpviewer

I found a cool little tool online for viewing your panoramas, it's called FSPviewer and can be downloaded here:

http://www.fsoft.it/FSPViewer/

horizon

Make sure the horizon is always at 50% of the height of your image, else your image is going to look warped.

THE RESULTS