Panorama, 360 degree virtual tour and interactive real 3D property —What are the differences?

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Panoramic and 360 degree virtual presentation are commonly used technologies. However not everyone’s presentations are built equal, especial some of the service provide only can produce the view from existing building but future development. This article overviews the major panorama, 360 degree technologies and what the major differences are.

How to choice the different technologies to fit into different firms’ needs at vary stages will be covered in the separated article.

This article will only cover the panoramic based technologies. The other interactive real 3D technologies will be in separated articles.

We will write other articles to explore the implementation and technical detail’s in the future newsletter. Such as:

• How to choice the 3D illustration technologies? — side-by-side comparison
• What are the pitfalls during 3D multimedia marketing content implementation?
• Most commonly used terms in 3D multimedia content creation
• ….

If you have recommendation or other comments, please post or contact me directly at andy@boundlessadvantages.com .

Panorama is came from the Greek words pân means everything and hòrama means to see, which stands for the all-around view. It became know in 1787 by Robert Barker (an Irishman) when he patented his plans.

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Here we will concentrate with the panoramas which are generated either by computer graphics (CG) or digital cameras.

The earliest panoramas were made by placing two or more daguerreotype plates side-by-side. Below are the major panoramas types:

1. Flat:
   1. Two or more views are placed together either with one row or multiple rows without any modification.
   2. The view is limited to 110 x 110 degree ( vertical and horizontal). No matter how big the view is, you can’t see the scenes behind.
   3. No special software need to create it
   4. No special viewer needed to view it
   5. Click there to view example
2. Cylinder:
   1. An image which looks prospectively-correct when mapped onto the inside of a cylinder.
   2. The view is limited to 180 x 110 degree (horizontal and vertical). It cannot capture any objects positioned either above or below you, as the cylinder has a limited height
   3. Need special software to create it
   4. Need special viewer to view it
   5. Click here to view example
3. Sphere: It is also called equirectangular
   1. An image which looks prospectively correct when mapped to the inside surface of a sphere.
   2. It can display everything around you in a viewer which can display 180 x 360 degrees.
   3. Need special software to create it
   4. Need special viewer to view it
   5. Click here to view the example
4. Cubic :
   1. A spherical panorama can be converted to six of 90×90 degrees rectilinear images
   2. Function similar as Sphere, except projection differently and use different methodology to review it.

Except flat or conventional panorama, all the others are needed to be viewed in a viewer. Most modem and advanced panoramic viewers are Flash or JavaScript based. Java based viewers are mostly used in the earlier days and less popular right now. HTML5 based viewer has been coming in slowly.

The viewers function or how the panoramas can be viewed, various dramatically. Here are major types of panorama view function types:

1. Single view only: can only view  one panorama scene and pan, tilt, zoom in/out (PTZ) function only. Click here to view the example
2. Multiple view: can view multiple panoramas in a single interface and has PTZ.
3. Multiple view + hotspot: has hotspots to link with other views or website, beside above. Click here to view the example
4. Multiple view + hotspot +  slideshow: has static flat view slideshow function, beside above.
5. Multiple view + hotspot + slideshow + limited interactive: limited interactive between panorama, hotspot, slideshow. Click here to view the example
6. Multiple view + hotspot + slideshow + movie + comprehensive interactive: Intelligent, comprehensive integrations between scenes and other objects to build virtual 3D online interactive replica of real physical worlds which either already exist or will be built in the future.  Click here to view the example 

Depend on your situation; you can choice the different panorama presentation technologies. However the truly interactive intelligent 3D panorama is most efficient and the cost is not much different than those less efficient technologies. This is especially true in now a day.

Good 3D illustration make the sales, the bad one only cost money!

Click here  to win free online 3D interactive property by taking Online 3D illustration Survey!