Chapter 7. 360-Degree Gallery
360-degree photos and videos are a different approach to virtual reality. Rather than rendering 3D geometry in real time with OpenGL, you're letting users look around a prerendered or photographed scene. 360-degree viewers are a great way to introduce consumers to VR because they give a very natural experience and are easy to produce. It is much easier to take a photo than to render a photorealistic scene of objects in real time. Images are easy to record with a new generation of 360-degree cameras, or the photosphere feature in the Google Camera app. Viewing prerecorded images requires much less computer power than rendering full 3D scenes, and this works well on mobile Cardboard viewers. Battery power should also be less of an issue.
Non-VR 360-degree media has become fairly common. For example, for many years real-estate listing sites have provided panoramic walkthroughs with a web-based player that lets you interactively view the space. Similarly...
