Anyone who follows the Blue Plate Special knows I love camera apps. There are so many good apps for the iPhone camera it is difficult to keep up with them; I actually forget about some of mine since they fill three folders. There are several apps I have that make panoramic type photos or that stitch photos together, but I recently found a really cool panoramic app that allows you to share an actual interactive 360 degree view quickly and easily straight from your device, called 360 Panorama. Let’s take a look. You will not be disappointed and will love the price!
Creating flat and interactive 360 degree panoramas has never been so simple and cool! Here are the steps:
1. Start the app.
2. Pan around.
3. Save and share.
That is truly it! Super easy and extremely fast!
While moving the phone around, a three-dimensional grid is visible with a camera window. To get the best results, I found moving slowly along the bottom of the grid for one turn then making a revolution filling the top of the grid. From my calculations, the camera snaps a new photo for every two grid squares. I recommend moving slowly and letting the entire screen fill up. It is also recommended to make a small rotation for better results.
Once the panorama is finished, explore by swiping around the screen and the picture will rotate freely. I was amazed how fast the process took. Share a link over email, Twitter or Facebook by tapping the button on the bottom right if the image is uploaded. Uploading the image allows for others to see the moveable image seen on the phone by going to the 360Verse website. The link can also be emailed along with the option to send a flat image. Saving the image places the flat image in the phone’s photo album. The button on the far left enables the gyroscope to move around the photo rather than swiping. This also works with links opened in Safari on IOS devices. Awesome feature!
To check out what a finished panorama looks like, go to the 360verse site and look at some of the photos. I have only taken mine around my house and will not include them for privacy’s sake. The bottom line is, this app is a wonderful way to share unique views of places you visit with anyone in the world. The photos come out clear and clean with the ability for the viewer to move freely and explore what you see. This will be perfect for vacations and special trips. The app is currently $1.99 but can be found on sale from time to time and can be used on the iPad2. I downloaded the app last week for free! The website use to share panoramas is totally free. Go get the app here in the app store and start sharing all of those beautiful views.
What I like: Quick, easy way to create and share beautiful panoramas anywhere. 360 online views.
What could be improved: So far, this app has performed flawless for me.
Microsoft have a pretty cool free app called “Photosynth” that looks pretty similar. Created a 360 pano that can be viewed on the phone, online (Silverlight) or even embedded.