Equirectangular

Equirectangular projection is one of the simplest way to create the texture of a sphere. It is the default projection used by most 360° cameras.

TIP

There is no need to declare the equirectangular adapter as it is the default one, unless you want to change its configuration.

import { EquirectangularAdapter } from '@photo-sphere-viewer/core';

const viewer = new Viewer({
    adapter: EquirectangularAdapter,
    panorama: 'path/panorama.jpg',
});

Configuration

useXmpData

• type: boolean
• default true

Read real image size from XMP data, must be kept true if the panorama has been cropped after shot. This is used for cropped panorama.

resolution

• type: number
• default: 64

The number of faces of the sphere geometry used to display the panorama, higher values can reduce deformations on straight lines at the cost of performances.

Note: the actual number of faces is resolution² / 2.

Cropped panorama

Photo Sphere Viewer supports cropped panorama given the appropriate configuration is provided. Cropped panoramas are not covering the whole 360°×180° sphere area but only a smaller portion. For example you might have a image covering 360° horizontally but only 90° vertically, or a semi sphere (180°×180°)

These incomplete panoramas are handled in two ways by Photo Sphere viewer:

• Read XMP metadata directly from the file with useXmpData option (this is the default)
• Provide the panoData configuration object/function

Use the Playground at the bottom of this page to find the best values for your panorama.

Theory

In both case the data contains six important values:

• Full panorama width
• Full panorama height
• Cropped area width
• Cropped area height
• Cropped area left
• Cropped area right

The Full panorama width / Full panorama height ratio must always be 2:1. Cropped area width and Cropped area height are the actual size of your image. Cropped area left and Cropped area right are used to define the cropped area position.

The data can also contains angular values:

• Pose Heading
• Pose Pitch
• Pose Roll
• Initial View Heading
• Initial View Pitch
• Initial Horizontal FOV

More information on Google documentation.

Provide cropping data

With XMP

If you created your panorama with a mobile phone or dedicated 360° camera, it should already contain the correct XMP data. Otherwise you can inject it yourself with tools like exiftool.

The XMP payload is as follow:

<?xpacket begin="" id="W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d"?>
<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/">
  <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
    <rdf:Description rdf:about="" xmlns:GPano="http://ns.google.com/photos/1.0/panorama/">
      <GPano:ProjectionType>equirectangular</GPano:ProjectionType>
      <!-- cropping information -->
      <GPano:FullPanoWidthPixels>6000</GPano:FullPanoWidthPixels>
      <GPano:FullPanoHeightPixels>3000</GPano:FullPanoHeightPixels>
      <GPano:CroppedAreaImageWidthPixels>4000</GPano:CroppedAreaImageWidthPixels>
      <GPano:CroppedAreaImageHeightPixels>2000</GPano:CroppedAreaImageHeightPixels>
      <GPano:CroppedAreaLeftPixels>1000</GPano:CroppedAreaLeftPixels>
      <GPano:CroppedAreaTopPixels>500</GPano:CroppedAreaTopPixels>
      <!-- pose information -->
      <GPano:PoseHeadingDegrees>0</GPano:PoseHeadingDegrees>
      <GPano:PosePitchDegrees>0</GPano:PosePitchDegrees>
      <GPano:PoseRollDegrees>0</GPano:PoseRollDegrees>
      <!-- initial view information -->
      <GPano:InitialViewHeadingDegrees>0</GPano:InitialViewHeadingDegrees>
      <GPano:InitialViewPitchDegrees>0</GPano:InitialViewPitchDegrees>
      <GPano:InitialHorizontalFOVDegrees>60</GPano:InitialHorizontalFOVDegrees>
    </rdf:Description>
  </rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>
<?xpacket end="r"?>

To write the XMP data to an image file, paste it in a text file and use this command:

exiftool -tagsfromfile data.xmp -all:all panorama.jpg

Manually

You can also directly pass the values to Photo Sphere Viewer with the panoData parameter.

const viewer = new Viewer({
    container: 'viewer',
    panorama: 'path/to/panorama.jpg',

    // cropping information
    panoData: {
        fullWidth: 6000,
        fullHeight: 3000, // optional
        croppedWidth: 4000, // optional
        croppedHeight: 2000, // optional
        croppedX: 1000,
        croppedY: 500,
    },

    // pose information
    // sphereCorrection: {
    //   pan: '0deg',
    //   tilt: '0deg',
    //   roll: '0deg',
    // },

    // initial view information
    // defaultYaw: '0deg',
    // defaultPitch: '0deg',
    // defaultZoomLvl: 50,
});

Default parameters

If the image does not have a 2:1 ratio and no XMP data are found and no panoData is provided, a best effort is done to display the image without distortion. The exact algorithm is as follow:

const fullWidth = Math.max(img.width, img.height * 2);
const fullHeight = Math.round(fullWidth / 2);
const croppedX = Math.round((fullWidth - img.width) / 2);
const croppedY = Math.round((fullHeight - img.height) / 2);

panoData = {
    fullWidth: fullWidth,
    fullHeight: fullHeight,
    croppedWidth: img.width,
    croppedHeight: img.height,
    croppedX: croppedX,
    croppedY: croppedY,
};

Playground

Use this demo to find the best values for your image.