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panorama posts

Filed under: Internet, Web services

viewAt: Flash based panoramic photo viewer for your browser

ViewAt
Odds are your computer monitor or laptop display isn't really big enough for viewing panoramic photos. That's why Apple released a QuickTime VR application for manipulating huge images in a small window. But if you don't want to install an application just to look at pretty pictures, viewAt lets you view and share panoramic photos using the same plugin your browser uses to access YouTube videos.

The site indexes images uploaded and shared by users. When you first login, you'll see a world map with markers that show where the photos were taken. Click on a marker for more information, and click on an image to bring up a Flash-based panoramic viewer. You can zoom in and out of photos and scroll around the image at various speeds.

The only thing missing is a way to download images. Like we said, your monitor probably isn't large enough to do these images justice without a desktop viewer. But if you wanted to print a panoramic photo or create a desktop background for 360desktop, there's no way to use these images.

[via WebWare]

Filed under: Business, Fun, Internet, Photo, Utilities, Web services, Freeware

DIY VR pics with Picturecloud

picturecloudThese are 360º movies, made from a series of pictures you take, for free via the Picturecloud website. They are like the product QuickTime VR movies, not the ones where you stand on one place and spin around. By taking a couple or three dozen pics moving the subject or moving around the large subject (such as a house), uploading those files in series, and letting Picturecloud do it's magic, you instantly get pan or orbit movies from your images. It's only as good as your pictures however, but easy to use if you need these done quickly. It'd be cool to see see this on PocketPC's or other handhelds with web access and cameras, perhaps that's something to charge for down the road, eh? The applications for Picturecloud are pretty diverse, and they'll even host your clouds for you, or let you grab the file yourself. A lot of fun, and useful to boot, who knew?

Filed under: Video, Macintosh

Creating 360-degree panoramic videos

Video Panorama

Developer Bill Meikle wanted to go beyond static QTVR panoramas, so he figured out how to make 360-degree panoramic videos with some cheap hardware and Mac software. He details the entire process at his web sites and includes lots of sample videos, and the results are pretty stunning.

Filed under: Fun, Photo, Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Imaging Tips

Autostitch - Today's Free File


If you've ever wanted to put together a series of shots into a panorama, you might want to try the free Autostitch program. It's the result of research from the Artificial Intelligence lab at the University of British Columbia. Yes, there are a number of photo stitching programs to create panoramas out there, but Autostitch is unique in that you simply feed in the photos to use, and it does the rest - no human intervention required! They have a free demo version online that you can download and play with to your heart's content.

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