Photographic VR: software

Panorama Tools (Linux, Mac, Win)
The cross-platform library behind Panorama Tools and many other GUI photo stitchers. See site for plug-ins and GUIs.
» http://panotools.sourceforge.net/
See also the Panorama Tools wiki at:
» http://wiki.panotools.org
[Links verified and viewed, 19 Feb 2007. Recommended; but easier if you use it with a good GUI.]

hugin (Linux, Mac OS X, Win)
Open source cross-platform GUI for Panorama Tools
» http://hugin.sourceforge.net
Download from:
» http://hugin.sourceforge.net/download/
Manual:
» http://hugin.sourceforge.net/docs/manual/

Tutorials:
Hugin Tutorials (from the hugin site)
» http://hugin.sourceforge.net/tutorials/index.shtml
A Quick and Dirty Hugin Panoramic Stitcher Tutorial
» http://www.bryanhansel.com/articles/panohowto.htm
Hugin paints a panoramic picture
» http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/08/22/148209.shtml?tid=75
Creating panoramic views using Hugin, Enblend and The Gimp
» http://www.tldp.org/linuxfocus/English/September2004/article348.shtml
Building Panoramic Images in The GIMP (a useful tutorial on Pandora, a GIMP plug-in for matching contiguous photo edges)
» http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7295
Optional: autopano-sift for automatic control point creation
» http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/autopano-sift/
Tutorial: creating a panorama with autopano-sift and hugin:
» http://exolucere.ca/articles/create-panorama
[Links verified and viewed, 19 Feb 2007. Recommended.]

PanoPoints (Linux, Mac OS X)
“PanoPoints is a free graphical front-end to the control point selection process necessary to create panoramic images using Panorama Tools”
» http://panopoints.sourceforge.net
[Link verified and viewed, 17 Feb 2006. Recommended.]

PanoWizard (Win)
A worthy alternative to Hugin (includes PanoTools, Pano2QTVR, SmartBlend, Enblend and AutoPano), though a little less flexible. It’s also a Windows-only program.
» http://www.egelberg.se/panowizard/
[Link verified and viewed, 28 Feb 2007.]

Panoweaver and Tourweaver (Win, Mac)
“Panoweaver is an easy-to-use and powerful panorama software which can stitch perfect 360*180 spherical and cubic panoramas from fisheye images.”
» http://www.easypano.com/download/00/Panoweaver/24/downloads
[Link verified and viewed, 15 Feb 2005. Software not tested.]

PTGui (Mac OS X, Win)
panoramic stitching software for Windows
» http://www.ptgui.com
[Link verified and viewed, 17 Feb 2006. Software not tested.]

VR Toolbox VR Worx 2.6
» http://www.vrtoolbox.com
[Link verified and viewed, 17 Feb 2006. Software not tested.]

PTMac (Mac)
“PTMac is the only Macintosh front end for creating panoramas using the powerful Panorama Tools package. Users can create a wide variety of panorama types
from a variety of lens types including fisheye, normal (rectilinear) and even computer generated images.”
» http://www.kekus.com/index.html
[Link verified and viewed, 18 Feb 2005. Software not tested.]

Autostitch (a free stitcher)
» http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html
You’ll find a short but useful tutorial, “Monument Valley 360 Basic Tutorial (From Start to Finish)”, at:
» http://www.yellowecho.com/panoramic4.htm

MGI Reality Studio
Download demo from:
» http://www.mgisoft.com/web/realitystudio/index.asp

LivePicture
Download LivePicture / Zoom plug-in from:
» http://www.mgisoft.com/web/viewers/plugin.asp

Download MGI (formerly LivePicture) PhotoVista authoring demo from:
» http://www.mgisoft.com/web/photovista/index.asp

Examples:
» Ottomation Inc. Virtual Tours
» Centennial Parklands VR Tour
» Australian National Maritime Museum Virtual Tours
» NASA Space Shuttle Virtual Tour

QTVR Make Cubic (Mac only)
A simple OSX-ready app for creating cubic QTVR movies from six faces or from equirectangular (a kind of sphere-to-rectangle projection which is used in some java-based players and other places) images
» ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Quicktime/Tools/QTVR/MakeCubic_v1.1.6.sit
Accessed from main download page (and see other QTVR tools):
» http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools/index.html
Tutorial at:
» http://www.katorlegaz.com/index.php?a=article&display=1079308800.php
[Links verified and viewed, 17 Feb 2006.]JutVision
Example:
» Wired Whitehall – Virtual Urban Interface System

Ipix
Download plug-in from:
» http://www.ipix.com/download.html

Miscellaneous software downloads (mostly Linux and Mac)
Linux panoramic photography packages (RPMs for hugin, enblend, panoglview, gimp-pandora-plugin, gimp-panorama-plugin, gimp-phfluuh-plugin, gimp-tif2xcf-plugin, gimp-wideangle-plugin, panorama-tools, panoviewer, and many more)
» http://bugbear.blackfish.org.uk/~bruno/panorama-tools/
Kator Legaz’s 3D software page:
» http://www.katorlegaz.com/index.php?a=links&c=software
[Links verified and viewed, 17 Feb 2006.]

Putting photographic VR movies on the web (tutorials)

Free pano viewers:
QuickTime Player
» http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
PTViewer
» http://www.fsoft.it/panorama/PTViewer.htm
PangeaVR
» http://www.pangeasoft.net/pano/plugin
Immervision G2 Viewer
» http://www.immervision.com

Tutorials:
Putting Panoramas and Object movies in a web page
» http://www.panoguide.com/howto/display/web.jsp

Photographic VR and 3D worlds

Combining VRML with QTVR: “VRML and QTVR get Married”
» http://www.itl.nist.gov/iaui/ovrt/projects/vrml/vrml_qtvr.html

Photo3D: adds photographic textures to 3D VRML models
Download demo from:
» http://www.photo3d.com/download_win.htm
[Link verified and viewed, 17 Feb 2006.]

PhotoModeler: creates 3D models from photographs. Applications include engineering and architectural previsualisation, virtual archaeology, games development, accident reconstruction, and forensics. Exports to DXF, 3DS, OBJ, DirectX, and VRML
Download demo software from:
» http://www.photomodeler.com/demo01.html

Geometra-3D: creates 3D VRML models from photographs

Download free version from:
» http://www.geometra-3d.com/download.htm
[Seems to have disappeared. But do a web search for information on the product.]

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