The History Of 360 Photography

The word “panorama” was originally coined in the late 18th century by English painter Robert Barker to describe a visual medium he had built, which enabled one of his paintings to be shown on a cylindrical surface and viewed from the inside. This innovative contraption allowed his contemporaries to observe the entire circle of the painting’s horizon in an essentially 360-degree format, and captured the original scene reliably.

Dating back even further, the idea of the panorama existed in painting, particularly murals, from as early as 20 A.D. These have been found in Pompeii and appear to be created in order to generate an immersive view of an entire landscape from an aerial perspective.

Fast-forward a few hundred years, and with the advent of photography it seems only logical that panoramic imagery would be one of the main focuses. One of the first recorded patents for a panoramic camera was submitted by the Austrian Joseph Puchberger in 1843, and development continued to grow from there, with panoramas made using silver-coated copper plates to produce highly detailed images.

In recent years too, one has even had the ability to take panoramic shots on smart phones, such as Apple, from its release of the iPhone 5 (or perhaps earlier if you download some external software) in the early 2010s.

Full 360-degree panoramic photography, which enables the viewer to view any part of a room, be it up or down, left or right, first came to prominence in 1857, as a camera that rotated around its own axis was patented. This captured a full 360-degree view by using fan-governed clockwork mechanics. 

Though much advanced in the 21st century and developing at rapid speed, as such, these 360-degree cameras are the focal point of virtual tour software, and in our PREVIOUS BLOG we looked at today’s range of cameras on offer, and reviewed those which we feel work the most optimally with EyeSpy360’s software. 

There are many uses for 360-degree photography, including capturing landscapes to their full and most accurate potential; teaming up the result with a VR Headset such as the Google Cardboard so you feel as though you are transported to another place or time; educational purposes which allow school children to become more engrossed in their work; those with a vested interest in photography of any kind; recording sports matches and music concerts; even capturing family holidays in more detail. 

But one of the main reasons for our thousands of clients to use 360-degree photography is to portray houses, apartments, office buildings, boats, hotels and all other types of property. We believe, and evidently they agree, that encapsulating these properties in full 360 enables the end user to really understand the whole picture, and is a much more accurate format than standard photography when it comes to marketing, promoting, selling or renting the desired space. 

With our software, the viewers can use desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile or VR headset to observe the virtual tours; they can be embedded into websites and the majority of property portals, as well as being uploaded to social media; and essentially all the client needs in order to create them is the all-important 360-degree camera.