I’ve been toying recently with various representations of a spherical panorama. The stereographic (or little planet) projection has become my favorite for various reasons:

* I think it’s the most interesting way to represent a spherical panorama (much less boring than the usual equirect I used in this blog post)

* It’s also more practical because the image’s width to height ratio is usualy 1:1 so it displays nicely almost everywhere

* It’s definitely more creative because you can tweak each image quite a lot (you can rotate the “viewpoint”, alter horizontal compression, move the center, etc.)

Take a look at some examples:

Tram Public Transport in Prague, Czech Republic

Wind Harvester Farm

Mexico City

Click on the images to view interactive versions.

Please send me links to little-planet images you find or your own.

Jeffrey Martin, Bruce Pales, and Jan Vrsinsky drink beer as the sun goes down at the Dejvicka station pub beer garden in Prague 6.

This is a 270×270 degree stereographic, or ‘little planet’ projection.

The video was created by Jeffrey Martin (email him at 360 c i t i e s at g mail)

Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth which provides panoramic views of streets so the viewers can look around at any place that has been covered. What is the difference between Google Street View and handcrafted virtual panoramic photography as of today? What is stopping Street View to look as today’s best VR panoramas? What are the current and future technology constraints? How will Street View look in 5 years?

Here are two videos that I currently use to help me to shift my focus whenever I feel I’ve drifted away from what I want. Plus one longer and more thoughtful.

I invite you to follow my Mexpedition Diaries photoblog. A regular dose of imagery from Mexico, Belize and Guatemala I created during a trip in 2008. You can find photos as well as spherical 360 panoramas there.

(go to Mexpedition Diaries)

We started in Mexico City and headed north, then through Palenque to Yucatan, then to Belize, Guatemala and back to Mexico City. Here’s the map of the whole Mexpedition Diaries trip.

Here are very nice examples of a aerial panoramic photography I’ve found on the web. (if you cannot see the images you need to install flash). The links below each image lead to the original pano and the authors are also credited in the panos. I might post a guide how to create images like these soon

tip: hold the mouse button in the image and drag your mouse to look around

For those of you who don’t know there are two versions of the great Wordpress blogging software. Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org. Both are free. The difference is that the com version is hosted on wordpress servers while you need to host the org version yourself. I’ve recently moved to the org version and here’s why.

Is the world really going to end in 2012? I don’t think so. On December 21 (or 23), 2012, the Mayan calendar completes it’s 13th b’ak’tun cycle, which started August 11, 3114 BC. Wikipedia says that academic research does not indicate that the Maya themselves attached any particular ‘doomsday’ significance to the year 2012. However according the 2012 doomsday prediction the world is going to end that day. New Age Movement says the planet and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation and 2012 may well be the end of the world as we know it, but not the end of the human species.

One way or another, this could be one of the most global and the most engaging experiments ever. The result of this experiment could determine the fate of planet Earth and all mankind. There is going to be a lot of focus on that date. The closer we’ll be to that date, the more focus there’s going to be. According to the law of attraction, we could experience some interesting manifestations of this focus, especially when this becomes a global topic.

I haven’t been bored for years now. At least not for very long. There’s simply always enough tasks to do, projects to tackle, fun things to explore or places to visit in my life. I’m experiencing situations that bring  more and more interesting people into my life every day and I’m constantly generating more ideas than I can ever handle. Let me explain why you should, too.

I’ve discovered panoramic 360 (spherical) photography during the fall of 2008 using the great Czech servers Virtual Travel and Hundred-Spired Prague created by inspiring guys Jaroslav and Tomas from Panoramas.cz.

Since then I’ve been having fun with unusual places and locations where a spherical panorama can be taken. I went to a trip to Mexico, Belize and Guatemala which was a great opportunity for me to find such places. Thanks again Jaroslav to lending me your fisheye lens!

I took a lot of spherical panoramas during the trip, all of them handheld, without using a special equipment like a tripod or panohead. If you are a beginner and want to know how to take a handheld spherical panorama without a tripod, check out my 7 Steps to Creating Your First Handheld Spherical Panorama In a Moving Vehicle. The short article contains some useful links too. I also recommend you to read panoguide.com for some interesting info on panoramic photography.

Now I have my own fisheye lens: Sigma 3.5 8mm, so I can experiment even more. Check out some of the panos I’ve taken so far on not so usual locations and at not so usual speeds: