About these Images

The following images are map projections (a la Mercator, Lambert, Robinson, etc.) of spherical panoramic images. A spherical panoramic image displays 360 degrees horizontally by 180 degrees vertically of a given scene. In other words, the spherical image shows everything you can see from a specific viewpoint. The map projections are applied for the same reason cartographers use them (the inherent distortions in area and/or angle one invokes when warping a spherical surface to a flat plane).

These process for creating these images is as follows:
  • Obtain 74 images using a standard digital camera attached to a special mount. This mount is called a “spherical panhead mount”, and allows the camera to be positioned at any angle vertically or horizontally. The resulting image set covers an imaginary sphere that surrounds the camera.
  • Mosaic/merge the 74 images into a single spherical panoramic image. The spherical panoramic image views 360 degrees horizontally by 180 degrees vertically. This image contains everything that can be seen from the cameras position in space and time.
  • Warp the spherical panorama using different map projections. Because the image mosaic covers the surface of a sphere, traditional map projections can be used to visualize the spherical images. Each projection distorts angles and areas in the spherical image to produce unique effects.
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