Please see the images by Jook Leung and Aldo Hoeben under the following link: http://www.iqtvra.org/gallery/gallery2/MainGalleryH-L.html

These artists seem to take a panorama and turn it to look down, making a small world view. I call these bubble views, but was wondering if there is a defacto name for this type of image. Any ideas on how they are constructed? Is there special software or can they be created with easypano?

eco

If you have photoshop 7 or CS its quite easy to do.  I made one here.. scroll down to page bottom.

http://360texas.com/virtualtour/texas/wwp/index.htm

It is done like this:

Your image is 2:1 for example: 1600 px wide and 800 px high.

Next open your image in Photoshop

Invert the image so that the ground is at the top of the image.  Means the image is upside down

then FILTER | DISTORT | POLAR Coordinates

This will convert your rectangle image to a circle.

The ground will become the sphere.. and the sky will wrap all around the sphere.

THEN if the new transformed image is a bit elongated

Duplicate Background layer

EDIT | FREE TRANSFORM | and drag the right side of the image until it becomes a perfect circle.

Then delete the background and Flatten the image and save as your file format.

Do I have a name for it?  No but I am sure someone has already.

Hope this helps

Dave

Flexify from Flaming Pear Software can also do this and lots of other cool stuff too. I think this is what Jook Leung used.

Cheers, John

yooooo....

thats the software package I was trying to remember... it's very good and well worth a try.

I tried the instruction of Dave and they give a great result!

Unless you do not not own Photoshop purchasing Flexify really does not make much sense...

Thanks

dlot

Yeah what Dave says does work well.

Flexify can do about 50 other projection transformations too though, and it's very easy to use. It can produce some absolutely mad effects that make it appear as though you took the panorama from a different location than you did. 

Try the hyperbolic projections especially. Mostly they just make you feel like you are tripping out but some are pretty useful.

It is a photoshop plugin btw, it's $20. Use whatever works for you.

Cheers, John