360 degree picture

[Mike]

I don't know how they did it, but this is pretty nice!

Bonaire Panoramas - Funchie's Reef (Remake)

 

[770link770]

Really neat... I was contemplating trying something like this with like 6-8 GoPro's attached to a ring bracket or something. Then just take out a still from the video and edit it all together. My brother is a digital design major and works with a lot of picture design and video editing so I'll ask him about it.

 

[diversteve]

It's called Quicktime VR. QuickTime VR - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've done similar work but not u/w - that has to be a lot more difficult.

What you basically do is generate a series of shots 30^o's apart for the full 360^o - I had a special tripod with an index stop. Any good digital camera will work.

Then you "stitch" them together on a computer - the s/w automatically matches the ends of each shot to the next one. The zoom features etc. are also added by the s/w.

I'd guess from the small amount of apparent distortion that whoever did this one used a fairly wide-angle lens - it's also why you can pan up and down. You really need a stable base for the camera or the results can be disorienting. Although I have done one freehand once but where the images didn't exactly match there was some ghosting.

You can also create linked hotspots that either go to a still image, a website, or another panorama. I used it once for a virtual tour thru a museum gallery - you could see the view from each end as well as read about some of the artwork.

The player s/w is called Panorama VR and it runs on top of Adobe's Flash player. Flash Panorama Player and QTVR Converter - Pano2VR - Garden Gnome Software Apple also provides player s/w but when I did it we had to instruct people to download a browser plug-in from the website first. I believe it's now incorporated into later versions of Quicktime.

 

[rickthompson]

Very cool...

 

[Dr Dog]

Very cool...

Yup just what I was going to say

 

[Mike]

It's called Quicktime VR. QuickTime VR - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've done similar work but not u/w - that has to be a lot more difficult.

What you basically do is generate a series of shots 30^o's apart for the full 360^o - I had a special tripod with an index stop. Any good digital camera will work.

Then you "stitch" them together on a computer - the s/w automatically matches the ends of each shot to the next one. The zoom features etc. are also added by the s/w.

I'd guess from the small amount of apparent distortion that whoever did this one used a fairly wide-angle lens - it's also why you can pan up and down. You really need a stable base for the camera or the results can be disorienting. Although I have done one freehand once but where the images didn't exactly match there was some ghosting.

You can also create linked hotspots that either go to a still image, a website, or another panorama. I used it once for a virtual tour thru a museum gallery - you could see the view from each end as well as read about some of the artwork.

The player s/w is called Panorama VR and it runs on top of Adobe's Flash player. Flash Panorama Player and QTVR Converter - Pano2VR - Garden Gnome Software Apple also provides player s/w but when I did it we had to instruct people to download a browser plug-in from the website first. I believe it's now incorporated into later versions of Quicktime.

What's really wild is it's not only 360 degrees on the horizontal, it also 360 degrees vertical. You can pan down and up, and all around and you don't see a tripod or the photographer, and there is no repeating of any fish as they moved if they were taking multiple pictures and stitching them together.

 

[lionfish-eater]

here's how its done. Cool camera head on a small ROV. Catlin Seaview Survey

 

[diversteve]

Actually I think that's different technology. Andre de Molenaar does QTVR photography as shown on his IVRPA page: IVRPA › Bonaire Panoramas

Now I do VR Photography underwater.

I used this one from Peace River Studios:



You often shoot wide angle with the camera oriented vertically, when it's stitched together it looks 360^o due to the overlap. There's also a super fisheye lens that's sometimes used, it obviously simplifies the stitching. I used one once but had to sit directly under the tripod to not be in the image. And you can also use a video camera.

He probably has a multi-row attachment on the pano head on his tripod rig. With it you can control the accuracy and shoot multi-row accurately:



The s/w stitches in both axis so it's seamless.

The reason you don't see the photographer is that when he's shooting he's behind the camera. Any fish that were in the entire shot would be seen - like the turtle and the diver. Any that were partially overlapping would either be stitched together unnoticeably or possibly removed in Photoshop prior to stitching. IIRC there was about a 10^o overlap. The s/w also handles 20^o increments so it's virtually un-noticeable.

What's really disheartening is click on the Remember Salsa panorama and spin around 180^o. Town Pier used to be a great dive...

 

[divergirl6]

Whoa that is really cool!

 

[RMAdventure]

Now that is cool!