Here is my little tutorial for the creation of a rendered spherical panorama.
These sperical panoramas can be used as environment map for example.
The resulting equirectangular picture has an aspect ratio of 2:1 (e.g. 4000x2000 px).
Normally, I use the described technique with digital photos (taken with fisheye lens) to create sperical panoramas for 360cities.net (which goes to the image layer of google earth).
Some more of my pictures (DevalVR-Plugin required, no mac version, sorry) can be found here: kupano.de
PROGRAMS
Here is a short list of the used programs:
- Sketchup 8, Indigo 3
- Sketchup plugin: CubicPanoOut by John Wehby (http://www.smustard.com/script/CubicPanoOut)
- pano2qtvr (short for panorama2quicktimevirtualreality
http://gardengnomesoftware.com/pano2qtvr.php)- DevalVR player (http://www.devalvr.com)
INSTRUCTIONS
1.
- create a sketchup model of the environment (see example model in zip)
- move the viewpoint to the later center of the sperical panorama
- turn on shadows (!, for CubicPano out needed)
2.
- Camera --> CubicPano Out (plugin)
- resolution: 835 pixel (e.g.)
- create cube pages: true (for creation of scenes)
- top image correction: true
- OK
- Select filename for images (quadratic cube surfaces)
3.
- SkIndigo render settings
a output: 835 x 835 px (important: quadratic)
b tonemapping: linear or camera (no Reinhard!)
c camera: no vignetting (!, new Indigo and Skindigo needed)
d render scene and save image as filename_0..5.ext (!, jpeg or tiff)
- change to next scene and repeat a-d
4. Pano2QTVR
- Create new project
- project tab: select project type as cubic
- Cube face base name: select first images (3.) with dialog (three dots at the end)
(- the original SU-images saved with the plugin CubicPano Out can be used too)
- Convert to Equirectangular
- select filename for image
5. DevalVR player
- View the created equirectangular picture with any VirtualReality-viewer (e.g. DevalVR player, freeware)
6. Publish some created panoramas here, ask questions or diskuss further possibilities
...I hope, someone will try to follow my instructions and show some results here...
Cotty
