Tag Archives: panorama

app of the week, iphone

Dermandar Panorama – iPhone App of the Week

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Dermandar Panorama – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive.

This week’s App is Dermandar Panorama.

“While many iOS apps offer panorama stitching, or even capturing and stitching, few make it as easy as Dermandar Panorama … it’s really hard to take a bad panorama.” – Macworld.

Features:
Fully automated capture system
Blazing fast stitching, see the results in no time
Full light exposure control
Immersive 3D viewer, pinch or double tap to zoom, autoplay…
Full 360 panoramas
On-device local gallery
Web gallery to enjoy thousands of public panoramas
”Near me” gallery, see panoramas near your location
No need to register anywhere to save your panoramas on your device
Sign up/sign in and upload for free to Dermandar.com

Sharing:

Save to your Photo Album
Facebook, share a link to an immersive 3D viewer page (HTML5 and Flash)
Twitter, tweet a link to an immersive 3D viewer page (HTML5 and Flash)
Email the panorama as an image or as a link
Copy the link (to paste it somewhere else, like in an SMS)

Quick-start guide:

Hold the device in portrait mode and avoid tilting it (straight vertical !)
Tap the START button
Rotate the device to the left or right
When the two shapes on top form a circle, an image will be taken automatically
Keep rotating the device in the chosen direction
Tap the FINISH button or put the device in landscape orientation to stitch and view the panorama
Tap the Gallery button anytime to cancel shooting

£1.49

I have tried a few panorama apps before, I quite like PhotoSynth and You Gotta See This! both of those however don’t really create “true” panoramas.

I bought Dermandar Panorama some time ago on the recommendation of a friend, but never really tried it out in anger, as in taking an actual panorama.

The process for taking a panorama is very simple and literally is almost point and shoot.

The process was simple and clear and I was quite pleased with the end result.

I thought the stitching was quite seamless and a lot better than other panorama apps I have used.

There are various options for sharing your panorama, but you can simply save to your camera and roll and then do whatever you want to from there. You can get an account with Dermandar, but it isn’t necessary to, in order to use the app.

A future update will bring higher resolutions which will be useful for print.

Overall I was really pleased with this app, it’s easy to use, and produces really good results.

Get Dermandar Panorama in the iTunes App Store.

app of the week

Photosynth – iPhone App of the Week

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Photosynth – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive.

This week’s App is Photosynth.

Photosynth for iOS is the panorama creation and sharing app that lets you capture more of your world. Now you can capture 360° in all directions (up, down, left, and right) to create spectacular images. Using the latest in computer vision techniques, Photosynth makes it easy and fun to create and share interactive panoramas of wherever you are.

Photosynth can share images and interactive panorama experiences to Facebook (with the included free Photosynth.net service). Integration with Bing Maps means millions of people could see your panoramas on maps and in search results for locations you’ve captured.

Free

This new app from Microsoft for iOS devices now allows you to capture photosynth pictures and display them on your iOS device. Think of stitched panoramas that allow for a full 360° view of a location.

Previously, though it was possible to view Photosynth panoramas on iOS devices, you had to go to a Windows only website to create them. That all changes with this app, you can now create Photosynth panoramas using your iPhone.

It’s very simple to use, but takes a little practice to get a really good panorama.

You move the phone around and the software either automatically takes the photographs or prompts you to do so. It then stitches them together.

You can either then share the completed panorama on Facebook, the Photosynth site or on Bing maps. This is for me one of the downsides of the app, as it isn’t possible to create a private “interactive” Photosynth panorama. Yes taking one of the college library is fine, but imagine wanting to take one of a wedding or a group of learners in the classroom. This may not be a panorama you want to share with the world. Any panorama that you do capture is saved to your Camera Roll and thus can be used by other apps or saved to your Mac when you sync. So for “static” panoramas it is possible to keep them private and that’s what I would use for those panoramas I take of people or weddings… So for taking panoramas of places and great views, yes a great app, for panoramas of groups of people, less useful. The reason is that the interactive version just “feels” better.

I should  point out that the first time I used the app I consistently failed to upload any panoramas to any site. I was able to upload the following day so have put that down to server problems on the day I was using it.

I should also point out that the panoramas in this review are the first ones I created. This one was particularly bad, so do practice with the app to get better results.

I have resized the images to 900 pixels wide, but the app does save them as full size images, so the original image was over 4000 pixels wide.

Compared to other panorama apps, and the fact it is free, this is in fact pretty good and does a reasonable job with the iPhone camera in creating panoramas.