View a 2D Photosphere/Panoramic/360 picture on Oculus Rift (VR)

Development Platform & Builds XR Development
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I want to somehow take a Photo-sphere from http://photosphereviewer.net/ or a panoramic picture and make it so you can “look around” the image. Almost like taking an image and mapping it to a sky-sphere. The tricky part of this is to take the 2D image and some how map it to VR, I don’t really know where/how to start with this, any help is greatly appreciated.

Specifically, an image similar to this:

81934-2d-vr.jpg
81934-2d-vr.jpg7168×3584 4.28 MB

2/3/2017 Update: I was able to dig this old example out: http://katianie.com/Install/InvertedSphere.zip

I decided that instead of using Unreal Engine for this particular application, I would make it using DirectX because I wanted the user to be able to provide their own photosphere (and panoramic) images to view. So it became more of an application then a game. You can take a look at the application I made here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=725382056

That doesn’t mean you cant use the Inverted Sphere for your game, Unreal Engine will produce a similar effect that my PanoramicVR application does, its just that the images will be baked into your game (aka the user cant put in their own images on the fly).

Let me know if you have any questions about photospheres and panoramic images, I ended up learning a lot from this project.

1 Like
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  1. Create a material based on this 360° Image.
  2. Create a big sphere and put the GameStart in side it.
  3. Drag the material inside the sphere.
3

Please provide an code example or article…or anything. Please show me how to go about what you are suggesting or provide more information.

4

Here you are,

  1. Attached in this answer has a sphere.fbx, import this mesh inside you ue4 project. It has the normals inverted.
  2. Then import the 360 image to your project too.
  3. Make sure that the sphere don’t have any collider, and the VR player’s capsule too.
  4. Drag the image into the sphere already in the scene.

84256-tuto03.jpg
84256-tuto03.jpg1928×1048 314 KB

Sphere.fbx: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0pXIMJ24pJ7V184b3Vob0VZZDQ/view?usp=sharing

5

Awsome! Thanks for the help!

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There’s a no-frills website that will do this for you: http://360pics.net.

In fact, here’s your photo: http://www.360pics.net/look-all-around-in-paradise/

  1. Upload your photo
  2. View or Share

No account creation, ads, or other BS

7

Do you have a code/example of doing the same? I tried adding a 360 degree picture as a texture to a material. And then adding that material onto a sphere model. But it doesnt seem to be working:(

8

Nah thats not what I was looking for, thanks anyway.

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Hey MJ!

Yes, I was able to dig this old example out, I’m uploading it to my website now, It should be ready about an hour from now. (It’s still uploading but I didn’t wana leave you hanging :D)

http://katianie.com/Install/InvertedSphere.zip

I decided that instead of using Unreal Engine for this particular application, I would make it using DirectX because I wanted the user to be able to provide their own photosphere (and panoramic) images to view. So it became more of an application then a game. You can take a look at the application I made here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=725382056

Let me know if you have any questions about photospheres and panoramic images, I ended up learning a lot from this project.

10

Hi Katianie, I need this exact thing. Were you able to find anything usalbe ?
I had failed to find anything relevant to this topic, only the oposite (exporting 360 stuff from unreal) .