What is the best solution (in terms of cost vs. quality) for creating 360 degree photography for creating environment maps?

Has anyone used the 0-360 system? It seems like a decent solution.

http://www.0-360.com/

Thanks.

Cheapest solution is to use a wide angle lens and your feet!

Just rotate yourself and click - leaving around 25% overlap between frames. How wide your lens is will determine how many frames you need. Better results if done on a tripod

These days pano software is so good that you rarely need those dedicated bits of gear - PShop CS4 and up is especially good at stitching pano's

this 0-360 thingy will leave 35% of the vertical field uncaptured. Not a good option if you are after full-blown environments.

The best stitching software is in my opinion PTGui. It is EXTREMELY powerful:
- Auto control point creation & alignment
- Correction of lens distortion
- Fully HDR compatible
- Able to export HDRI envmaps as well as any kind of panorama, qtvr, cubemaps...
- Able to calculate "point of view shift" for nadir images
- Etc...

Maybe too powerful for envmaps...

Then, depending on the level of perfectness you want, you can take the pictures "handheld", on a tripod, or on a tripod+panoramic head.

Etienne

I've created 360 deg HDRI images using:
- DSLR
- 16mm Fisheye lens
- tripod
- Manfrotto 303SPH (http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q= ... a=N&tab=wi)
- Hugin stitching software (http://hugin.sourceforge.net/)
- Quite a lot of patience

I did write up a bit of a tutorial on my site here: http://hdri.uk.to/v/how_to

This is what I have the biggest problem with. Can you recommend any one-shot solution that is even remotely affordable for the average consumer?

One probe, one hdr camera, one shot, one crop and done (you've got the wife already ?) ?



image taken from http://www.pearsonfaces.com/fpsurgeon/labels/HDRI.html

Sorry Doug, you're the one

PTGui is 79€ (but for HDR and nadir point-of-view-shift you need the pro, 149€)

However, you can give it a try, it just adds watermarks.

I know this method is used a lot, but I personally have issues with it. I'm pretty sure that the reflection captured in the sphere does not cover the full 360 degrees, also most of the 'behind' information is compressed into the very edges of the sphere and hence you'll lose resolution in those areas.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I can't see how this method adequately 'samples' the scene behind the sphere. Resolution to the front, however would be acceptable.

You can apparrently solve this problem by taking 2 pictures of a chrome sphere, 90 degrees apart: http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/tutorial/tutorial5.html

Thanks for the info, guys.

Is it possible to get adequate resolution for an environment map by using a 3" precision chrome sphere? It definitely seems like a much quicker and easier method but i am doubtful of the results. Does anyone have experience with the chrome sphere method?

Sorry for dusting, and perhaps for the obvious hint but I found this page potentially usefull if you are getting involved into the matter:

HDRLabs Tutorial page

LOL!