360 degree panoramas are created by taking photos in all directions and stitching them together; but how can they be displayed? A common approach, to be found on most estate agents websites, is to allow the buyer to move the picture to look in any direction to get an idea of the room as if they were actually present.
But it possible to print a 360 degree panorama as a photograph? The short answer is no, but the longer answer is yes, if one is prepared to forgo some of the panorama. The trick is to do this without loosing all of the immersive effect of 360 degree panorama. I have been trying to do this for a while, and my 2008 ARPS panel (which can be viewed on my website) was based on some possible ways of achieving this.
More recently, I have been motivated by some scrolls produced by Chinese landscape masters. In photographic terms these can be thought of as panoramas in portrait mode: 3 times as high as wide. Within this frame, I create panoramas with 360 degrees field of view vertically and 360/3 = 120 degrees horizontally.
The first four examples are from the Isle of Lindisfarne, Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne, Allander Water near Milngavie and a Birmingham canal. In fact many different images can be generated from a single 360 panorama; this is one of the many fascinations of panoramic scrolls.
I like to print onto cloth (30cmx90cm) and hang the picture on the wall just like a Chinese scroll. The last example is a photograph of a scroll (depicting the beach at Arisaig) hanging on my wall.
Allander
Birmingham
Fitzroy
Lindisfarne
Arisaig (Showing Wall hanging)