Explore the world with highlights of 360Cities collection
It’s weird to think but the internet is still very much in its infancy. You may have been an internet pioneer in the 90s or an early adopter at the turn of the millennium, but the internet didn’t become truly omnipresent until everyone started owning smartphones. This means many brands are still learning to find the best ways to engage with audiences online and that’s constantly evolving too.
At first, it was quickly discovered that imagery was hugely important, then that morphed into a need for video as internet capabilities evolved. But what if videos aren’t right for you and you still need something with more movement than stills. Then 360-degree photography might just be what you’re after: 360-degree imagery is a photo that you can scroll around allowing you see behind the camera as well as in front of it; that’s 360-degrees around and 180-degrees up-and-down. It has the accessibility of still photography without all the technical demands and expense of video.
The pioneers of this engaging format are 360Cities. They started in 2007 when a bunch of photographers and gear geeks got together with a simple mantra: to create high quality 360-degree images for online viewing. Technology at the time was booming and this meant software for stitching images together was greatly improved. Steve Hercher, Commercial Director at 360Cities, says everything seemed to “converge to make creating and viewing beautiful 360s online a compelling experience.”
So what exactly is 360-degree imagery good for? Clearly, it’s not going to be as versatile as stills. But you’d be surprised at the numbers of applications you’d see them in. Steve explains how they see a growing number of customers specialising in virtual reality (VR) experiences and that’s expected to continue as VR becomes more accessible. For example, we’re starting to see VR-based training and it’s even being used in palliative care therapy.
Steve elaborates: “The range of uses is surprisingly wide and includes social media ads, online treasure hunt promotions, educational and travel publishing, interactive in-store point of sale kiosks, trade shows, large format mural prints, planetarium shows, TV news broadcasts, and documentary films among others.”
I think what’s really illuminating about these uses is that they’re trying to leverage 360s to drive engagement. It’s as if we’re working towards that classically sci-fi scene of people interacting with content and each other through holograms. I wonder how long it’ll take us to get there. But before we go full sci-fi, Steve is seeing another development play out: stereoscopic 360-degree imagery.
Stereoscopic 360s use two images, overlaid on top of each other, which allows your eyes to calculate a sense of depth in an image. “It’s amazingly compelling”, Steve proclaims, “and can only be appreciated while viewing in a decent VR head-mounted display. The sense of presence you have when viewing a stereoscopic image is startling.”
Unfortunately, running your own VR setup does require a high-end PC with a graphics card powerful enough to cope with the rendering. But it won’t take long for things to become more accessible – remember when digital cameras were extremely expensive for how bad the image quality was?
But there’s a shortage of stereoscopic content creators due to the technical difficulties. “It’s a good deal trickier than even very high quality 360s shot by a real expert,” Steve explains. “It would be great to see hardware and software solutions emerge that could make shooting in stereo easier and accessible to more people.” I think it’s only a matter of time before we see that happening.
So what’s next for a business that’s been at the forefront of 360s for over ten years? Steve tells me that they’ve been working on a B2B service that allows companies to access their database of 360s.
“This enables organisations like education technology providers, VR conferencing service providers, publishers et cetera to enable their users to directly search and make use of content they discover in our database without leaving their particular service.”
With so many years under their belt, 360Cities have a wealth of experience to draw from to make good decisions like this. And this coincides with the continual efforts in e-commerce of making customer experience as seamless and efficient as possible.
360Cities are also planning to take this philosophy to the education sector with the launch of 360Schools. “The service capitalizes on the proven benefits of immersive and interactive learning”, 360Cities CEO Bruce Pales tells me. “And there’s an increasing demand for AR (augmented reality) and VR in the classroom.”
In a year where digital learning has been forced to the forefront, it seems apt that we seek to improve the way in which we educate children using technology. And I think many of us would choose interactive learning instead of poring over a stale, old textbook.
Like all pioneers, 360Cities were perhaps ahead of the time when they started in 2007. But it didn’t take long for that investment to cash in. As we watch VR and AR become more and more ubiquitous, it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing 360s everywhere. And people will start finding other innovative ways of using them. Fortunately, in the dynamic world of digital, it won’t take long for us to find out what those innovative uses will be.
If you’re looking for 360-degree panoramic imagery, there’s a 360 option in the Alamy search bar to help you find the right image faster.