More and more new media content is being created every year. A real discovery for lovers virtual reality creation has become. With the help of a special shooting technology, anyone can view the video from different angles and perspectives and immerse themselves in the virtual space as much as possible.

In connection with the advent of this new product, many are wondering how to watch 360-degree videos on YouTube and other resources? Developers entertainment content offer several ways to view at once:

• on the phone;
• in or helmet;
• on a computer or laptop.

What is 360 degree video?

In another way, this new type of content is called panoramic or VR video. With it, each person has the opportunity to see not only the central images, but also the actions or the situation on the sides, sides and bottom.

With the help of this entertaining content, you can dive into the sea and view the underwater world from all sides, find yourself in an airplane cabin, visit different countries and places.

The image is taken from several cameras at once. Shooting is done from a variety of angles, and all cameras have a wide field of view. After shooting, the videos are stitched using special programs. Thus, a single spherical space is created. The created video recording can be included in the modern computer game or view separately. It is not uncommon for a 360 degree video to be integrated into various websites.

Important! Don't forget to visit the official Youtube channel "Virtual Reality Video". There you will find a panoramic video for every taste.

How to view panoramic video on a computer?

The easiest way to watch VR video is on desktop computer or laptop. You don't need to install to view. additional applications and programs. In rare cases, experts recommend updating the version of the browser you are using to the latest one. Panoramic videos can be viewed through any browser installed on the PC, except for Internet Explorer.

1. Find VR videos on YouTube.
2. Open its preview.
3. Press the left mouse button on the screen and hold.
4. To view the space around you need to turn the computer mouse in different directions.
5. To approach or, conversely, move away from any object, you need to scroll the mouse wheel.

You can change angles not only by moving computer mouse, but also using the arrows on the keyboard.

How to watch 360 degree video on phone?

You can watch a video of this format from any modern phone:

• on a smartphone;
• on any iPhone model.

Important! Only modern phone models can support panoramic video format

This is due to the fact that for successful viewing of VR video, 2 motion sensors in space must be installed in the device: an accelerometer and a gyroscope.

The gyroscope determines the location of the phone in space. This allows you to flip the screen, change the viewing angle by moving left and right, up and down. In this case, the user does not need to touch the screen - it is enough to move around its axis. The space in the video moves after the user. Thanks to this, the videos you watch look as realistic as possible.

A phone without an accelerometer will not be able to play a panoramic video, the image will not change. In turn, without a gyroscope, it is quite possible to view the video. However, you can move in different directions only by pressing the touch screen.

AT Play market Several programs are presented to determine the sensors installed in the phone. By downloading one of these applications for Android (for example, Sensor Box), you can find out if VR video will be supported in a particular smartphone.

To view panoramic videos on modern smartphone enough to install official app YouTube resource. In new phones, as a rule, this program is installed by default. After that, you can watch VR videos not only through the application, but also through any browser or program.

FROM iPhone Watching a 360-degree video is also quite easy, but there are some nuances. As with a smartphone, all you need to do to watch a VR video is download and install the YouTube app for iOS.

Attention! On iPhone, 360 video will only play through the downloaded app. Using other programs and the Safari browser, you will not be able to open the video. However, most often, on third-party resources, iPhone users are provided with a link to view YouTube.

Watching videos with VR glasses and helmets

The video for . In order to use them, you need to install the appropriate application on your smartphone. Most of the devices are only compatible with Android phones. Additionally, you can use the program that checks the compatibility of the phone and VR glasses.

Important! One of the most affordable VR glasses, which are also recommended by Youtube, are

After fulfilling all the above conditions, you need to follow the following instructions:

1. Through any search engine find a 360-degree video on your phone. As a rule, it is accompanied by the corresponding hashtag.
2. Attach phone to virtual reality glasses.
3. Start video recording. At the same time, the phone must be held in hands, since the gadget is used to move in space. And you can also move around using the touchpad installed in a VR helmet or glasses.

In addition, there are virtual reality helmets that can be synchronized not only with a smartphone, but also with a computer.

Competent experts believe that VR images may soon replace other types of video recordings.

I hope this article helped you and you understand how to watch 360-degree videos on a computer, smartphone or using VR glasses and helmets.

Panoramic photos are now gaining popularity on the Internet, and more and more people are wondering how to view panoramic photos. This article will answer this question. Required to view special programs because the photo just doesn't look right in the browser.

To view a spherical photo, you need to download one of the many viewer programs. After VR technologies began to spread on a large scale, many programs appeared on the Internet designed to view and create photos from complete overview(360 degrees). Let's consider a few of them.

WPanorama

Free software for viewing spherical images. Among the advantages, one can single out the fact that its trial version is perfect for home use, it also has a small size, and the ability to install panoramic images on the computer screensaver.

Advantages and disadvantages

• First, most panorama photo viewers are paid because there is a demand for them.
• The second WPanorama will not take up much space on your hard drive.
• Thirdly, not many applications can boast of special ways to display panoramic pictures.

Of the shortcomings, only a complex interface stands out, which not everyone can handle the first time.

Professional Panorama Photo Viewer 360 HD

Professional Panorama photo Viewer 360 HD is a paid program. Advantages: Supports Ultra Hi-Res jpegs images, opens any files, from any sources, the Internet is used only for the first launch, smooth movement and panning.

• First - Ultra Hi-Res jpeg images These are huge resolution images, up to 65000×35000.
• Secondly, you can open files from various programs, for example from a browser or gallery, it is enough that the program is minimized to tray.
• Thirdly, smooth movement is an advantage, since not all programs can boast of this.

Among the shortcomings, users highlight the fact that there is no Russian interface language.

Video Stitch Player 360

VideoStitch Player 360 is an absolutely free and simple program for viewing 360 spherical images. You can download it both on the Internet and on the official website of the developer. The advantages are the simplicity of the menu, the Russian language of the interface, but the opening of images is rather peculiar.

• Firstly, the application interface is simply unrealistically simple, even a child will figure it out.
• Secondly, there is a Russian language and this is a definite plus, in other programs, in most cases, it is not.
• Thirdly, just drag the photo file into the program window, and it is open.

Users complain about the lack of a pause button, and the inability to adjust the sound (in the case of watching a video) in the application.

How to take a spherical photo on your phone

Why do we need 360-degree panoramic photos

Many people, when they start using these programs, usually ask the same question: what is it for at all?

Well, the answer to that would be quite simple. This is necessary in order not to take several photos from different angles. For example, you are selling an apartment, so it is enough to attach a panoramic photo of each room to the ad. Or you decided to take a group photo at a party, then just stand in a circle and a panoramic photo will capture you all. Technology does not stand still, and if people had not found a use for this type of photography, it would not have spread on the Internet.

As already mentioned, technology does not stand still, literally every hour new software is created. Every day someone comes up with a new idea. At this stage of technology development, the main thing is not to get lost and follow the trends, otherwise in five years you will simply cease to understand what people are talking about on the street. Some ten or twelve years is worth waiting for, until the so-called peak of technology development, and we hope to create full immersion technology.

Today, there are more and more videos with a 360-degree view, such a panoramic video can already be watched online. And how to watch a spherical video locally without an Internet connection? There are several video players designed specifically for watching 360-degree videos, in this article we will try to determine best app for these purposes.

We got the app first. Video Stitch Player 360 from the developer of software for gluing panoramic video, the program is absolutely free, you can download it at. VideoStitch Player 360 pleases with its simplicity and clarity, in order to open a video file, just drag the video into the player window or use the standard "File" menu:

As they say: “Simple and tasteful”, there is nothing superfluous in the application, but there are some points that are clearly missing. The first thing you pay attention to is the absence of a pause button, of course you can use the space bar, but it’s still somehow strange. And yet, there is no sound level adjustment in the player; it can only be turned off, and if you need to make it quieter / louder, then only systemically.

VideoStitch Player 360 has two viewing modes: normal (simple) for viewing on a computer monitor and Oculus Rift for the happy owners of the virtual reality helmet of the same name. Support for Oculus Rift in the player is very pleasing, because. his popularity is on the rise. The application works well, the panorama rotates smoothly, by the way, on a PC, the angle moves only with the mouse cursor, the arrow keys are powerless here, in the case of the Oculus Rift, the direction of view is changed by turning the head. You can zoom in and out of the frame using the mouse wheel, which is very convenient, and in general the player is cool, albeit with minor flaws that you quickly get used to.

Another player - Kolor Eyes from the Kolor company, which has developed a whole series of software for merging panoramic photos and videos and for creating virtual tours. This application is also free, we are looking for it on the site.

KolorEyes has a non-standard look, but you can figure it out:

The easiest way to open a file is to drag it into the viewer window, or go to menu>Open File/Stream, here you can also open a link for online viewing.

In terms of playback quality, KolorEyes is similar to the previous player - there are no complaints, panoramic video is played on a PC and Oculus Rift, the sphere also rotates with the mouse, and the viewing angle can be changed with the wheel. This is where the similarities of both applications end, then KolorEyes opens up from a better side.

In addition to mouse control, KolorEyes is compatible with , a gesture control device that connects to a PC and gives additional features, especially in conjunction with a virtual reality helmet:

KolorEyes has several color effects, the benefits of them are doubtful, but, nevertheless, they can be useful to someone. Also here (Menu>View Projection) you can change the panoramic projection, which in some cases is useful, and sometimes just funny, as in the case of the Little Planet projection, when the panorama can be collapsed so that it turns into a small planet.

But the most interesting feature is the choice of stereoscopic mode and this is actually a step forward. Yes, 360-degree video can also be stereoscopic, and KolorEyes allows you to select the type of stereo pair in order to correctly display a 3D image on the screen, of course, for this the video file itself must be shot in stereoscopic mode. Thus, KolorEyes allows you to play panoramic video in stereo mode on a 3D monitor or on a 3D TV if the TV is connected to a computer.

A nice bonus from Kolor is mobile app to play video panoramas, it is compatible with both Android and iOs:

By installing the program on your smartphone, you can view published panoramic videos online or open 360 videos locally from the memory of your mobile gadget.

All these advantages make KolorEyes a more interesting player for playing 360-degree videos. Of course, there are other applications that are not mentioned in this article, but their capabilities are disproportionately small, most often they have problems playing 3D video on a computer or are completely designed exclusively for Oculus Ruft.

Happy viewing!

The PTViewer program has existed since the beginning of the century, uses Java technology and has good capabilities for creating interactive presentations. However, it also has disadvantages. Limited scaling of the image window, dependence on the version of the Java machine, the inability to view very large panoramas.

Today there are about a dozen programs for viewing and presenting spherical panoramas on the Internet. You can see how the main ones work when showing the same panorama here. As can be seen from the table on this site, three methods of panorama presentation are most often used: a player based on Java technology, a player based on Flash technologies, and a player based on QuickTime technology. I will not consider the player based on Apple QuickTime technology, since it cannot be used on my Linux machine. Java-based players differ little in functionality from the aforementioned PTViewer, but today's article will be devoted to displaying panoramas using Flash technology. There are quite a lot of players based on this technology, most of them are commercial. In my opinion, functionally they are not much superior to open source programs. source code, and their main advantage, which is probably worth paying for, is the presence of an interface for creating your own projects. In other words, they will take you less time to create your first online spherical panorama presentation than if you use free software. If you do a serious project with many panoramas and developed interactivity, then the time to study proprietary and free software becomes comparable. To create the simplest presentation for one panorama, there are also very simple open projects. Let's start with them.

pan0 - open source, Flash 9 based panorama player

Since after panorama stitching in the program we get panoramas in an equidistant projection, the most in a simple way put it on the Internet without additional transformations is open project Pan0. Download the swf file, insert the following piece of code into your html page, write the name of the file with your panorama in two places. All. codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0"
width="100%" height="100%" title="(!LANG:Hello, Panorama">!}

"pan0.swf?panoSrc=pano.jpg" />

"pan0.swf?panoSrc=pano.jpg" allowFullScreen="true"
width="100%" height="100%" quality="high"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#DDDDDD">

You can watch on a local machine or upload to a server. Compared to PTViewer, the advantage of this program is a scalable window, however, there are problems with big files. The display starts after a full load, and there may be problems displaying panoramas larger than 8000x4000 pixels or with files larger than 6 MB, even on relatively powerful machines.

The program is distributed under the GNU GPL license.

CuTy, QTVR viewer based on Flash 10

Another easy way to present a single panorama with using Flash. There are a few more preliminary movements here than in the previous case, but then everything is very simple. Download the project files, download the , create a swf file with the command: mxmlc -target-player=10.0.0 -use-network=false CuTy.as

Let's convert our panorama from an equidistant projection to the QTVR (Quicktime Virtual Reality) format using, for example, a program with the command: erect2qtvr [ options] -- erect= mypanorama. tif

We rename the swf file so that the name up to the dot matches the name of the panorama - and that's it, you can watch the panorama using a standalone flash player or insert it into an html page. Sometimes, however, the edges of the cube into which the panorama is divided become noticeable.

The program is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution license version 3.0 or later.

The PanoSalado project and its branches

Technically, today you can get very large panoramas, up to gigantic ones, for example, such as 26-gigapixel. Can also be done great amount interconnected panoramas, as in projects or . Google today allows viewing spherical panoramas taken by its mobile laboratory from almost anywhere in a number of European capitals. True, all these points lie on the roadway, because they were removed from the car. In the Google Art Project, dozens of the world's major museums can also be examined in detail. Of ours, the Hermitage and the Tretyakov Gallery are still available. The project is striking in its scope, but on a smaller scale the same and even best result You can also get it yourself, for example, using the program. The idea that large panoramas should be downloaded in parts and have several copies of the same image with different resolutions lies on the surface. A similar technique is used, for example, for maps in the ozf2 format in the OziExplorer program. Sometimes something open falls from the giants of the software industry. At the beginning of this article, we took advantage of Adobe's gift of the Open Source Flex SDK, but now we'll take advantage of Microsoft's gift of the . To convert to this format, you can use the SaladoConverter program. The program is written in Java, converts an equidistant projection to a cubic one and creates a whole system of folders. Main folders: _f(from English front) - the front face of the cube, _b(back) - respectively, back, _d(down) - lower, _u(up) - top, _l(left) - left, _r(right) - right. Inside these folders, in turn, there are folders that contain images of cube faces with different resolutions. Moreover, when the side of the cube exceeds a certain set parameter, then this side, in turn, is divided into several squares, for each of which its own image is already recorded. Thus, when viewing a panorama, we actually immediately see a low-resolution image, which further, as it loads, becomes more and more detailed. The player consists of a swf file and a number of additional swf modules. The main html file launches the player and points to an xml file containing detailed description panorama and actions with it. This file contains the file names of one or more panoramas, the location of pictures with buttons and a description of the actions performed when they are clicked, the location of arrows or other pictures indicating transitions between images. With the help of additional modules, a navigation window can also be called, in which, for example, points for shooting panoramas presented in the presentation will be plotted on the map.

The technology described above is used in one form or another both in the Panosalado project and in many commercial projects, and the content of the xml file, of course, is different everywhere. The Panosalado project was born in 2007, then the Panosalado2 project arose, and in October last year, the SaladoPlayer branch spun off from it. Until recently, the main version was Salado 0.7, and on March 16 this year, SaladoPlayer 1.0 was released. Functionally, the programs do not differ very much, so, in SaladoPlayer 1.0, window scalability has been added (in both versions, you can also call full screen mode), but the command set has changed dramatically. And xml file written for version 0.7 will not work with version 1.0. The developers claim that a new version more stable. An autopsy will show. The documentation in English is quite complete and well illustrated with examples. However, with some new features like direction

They have many names.
All these are interactive videos where you can control the angle, that is, while watching, point the camera in any direction. You seem to find yourself in the center of events and can turn around and look around, as in life. Only in life you spin yourself, but here you rotate the world around you. And then there are the same photos.

Started filming and publishing spherical video and spherical photo, I have come across the fact that many people have no idea how to watch it and often see only previews, which can look quite strange. like this (preview on the left). A person looks at this work and thinks - what did the author want to say by this ....... Most people don't think anything, they just skip by. Or, during normal viewing, a person sees this option . He sees it either as a preview or as a photo. In this case, the photo is perceived simply as an unusual or defective frame. The situation is similar with video. Not only does the preview not give an idea of ​​what you can see, it distorts and repels the person from viewing. For this I had to write this manual. I hope that with her you will discover new world virtual travel.

Let's start by looking first spherical photo panoramas. To fully view them, you need to either go to special sites where there are software to view them. There, as a rule, they are placed. In doing so, you will see something like this. I've embedded this photo on my website so you can practice. Hover your mouse over the photo, hold down left button mouse and try to rotate the photo, looking at the world around you, controlling it.

Now that you know how to look photo 360, go to a special site where they are. There you will see a preview. click on them
and look spherical photo panoramas. Find a button on the photo that will allow you to open the photo in full screen. so the effect of viewing. Viewing from mobile devices is similar, through the same sites. In this case, you will be asked to install special programs, without which it will be impossible.

About watching your own spherical photo panoramas I will not write, because by the time you learn how to make them yourself, you will already have chosen a program for viewing them.

Now about viewing spherical video (360 videos). You will most likely watch spherical video on YouTube. If you watch them on other specialized sites, then there will be special instructions.

And I'll talk about YouTube. Remember that in posts in social networks, you will only see the preview, which does not reflect the picture. You need to go to YouTube. There you will see spherical video, almost in the same form as I embedded it on my site. Please note that on the left upper corner The video has a gray circle with arrows. if you do not see it, it means that your browser does not support viewing such a video. In this case, change your browser or update it to latest version. Having achieved a gray circle with arrows, you can rotate the video by clicking on these arrows or by holding the left mouse button and moving it. Note that there is an icon in the lower right corner that allows you to expand 360 videos in full screen, which I highly recommend doing.

If you are watching a spherical video with mobile device, then I strongly recommend doing this not through a browser, but through a special mobile application from YouTube. The rest of the options will require long shamanic dances with a tambourine.

Please note that there is no mouse control here. Rotate video and view it with different parties is carried out by moving the mobile device, as if we are looking through it. Pay attention to the glasses icon in the lower right corner. Viewing such a video through virtual reality glasses(VR) gives the effect of full presence. I strongly recommend getting them, since now I will bring quite a lot of my travels with spherical videos and spherical photos))). Visit my blog and subscribe to

And the photo that you saw on the intro of this article is obtained by transforming a spherical video and is called a “little planet”. Also cool and does not require special techniques for viewing.