Stitching, parallax and HDR: 360° camera words explained

These are the words of 360° photography that decide whether a photo comes out clean. Panoramr does not stitch or merge photos, and has no tool to retouch a seam or a tripod: it takes the finished file, a JPEG or TIFF that is twice as wide as it is tall, or six cube faces. Photo requirements lists exactly what it takes. Each part below says what a word means and what to do about it before you upload.

Stitching

Stitching is joining the pictures taken by several lenses, or by several shots, into one 360° photo. Panoramr does not do it; it takes the joined file. A 360° camera's own app stitches for you, and a photographer who shoots with an ordinary camera on a panoramic head stitches with desktop software, then exports an equirectangular JPEG or TIFF. A file in any other format is refused, and its row says why: Fix upload problems lists the messages.

How to get a joined file out of a camera: with an Insta360, with a RICOH THETA, which saves each JPEG already joined. If the stitching is poor, redo it in the app that made it and put the new file in with Replace Original File: Replace or swap a panorama explains what stays.

Stitch line

The stitch line is the seam where two lenses' pictures meet in a stitched 360° photo. Anything very close to the camera on that seam can look broken or doubled, because each lens sees it from a slightly different place (see parallax below). The fix is in the shooting: keep people and furniture away from the camera's sides, at least a meter, and turn one lens, not the side of the camera, toward what matters most in the room, as the Insta360 guide advises.

Panoramr shows a photo as it is and has no tool to mend a seam. Shoot the scene again, or stitch it again, and use Replace Original File on the scene.

Parallax and the nodal point

Parallax is the shift in how near and far objects line up when the viewpoint moves. In 360° photography it matters when pictures are joined: if the camera turns about the wrong point, near objects shift against far ones from one picture to the next, and they will not line up. The nodal point, also called the no-parallax point, is the point inside the lens to turn the camera around so that this does not happen. A panoramic head holds an ordinary camera so that it turns about that point, which is why photographers use one.

A 360° camera has its lenses close together and does the joining itself, so only things very near it show the problem, on the stitch line. Panoramr never sees the shots, only the joined photo, so there is nothing to set.

Zenith

The zenith is the point straight above the camera: the ceiling or the sky. In an equirectangular photo it is the top edge, one point spread across the whole width, so the top of the flat file looks stretched; viewed in 360° it looks normal. The point straight below is the nadir, where the tripod shows: Hide the tripod covers it.

In Panoramr a visitor can look straight up unless you stop them: Upward limit in the card View limits of the Design tab's Transitions and cameras panel (Advanced view) starts at 90 degrees, which allows it. Limit how far visitors can look up or down has the steps. A scene's opening tilt is set with Set Initial View: see Set the initial view.

HDR and bracketing

Bracketing is taking several photos of the same view at different exposures, some darker and some brighter. HDR, high dynamic range, merges them into one photo, so that a bright window and a dark corner both keep their detail. It suits a room with bright windows. Many 360° cameras can merge an HDR photo inside the camera (some also offer bracketing for photographers who merge the exposures themselves), as the RICOH THETA and Insta360 guides describe; the camera must stay still while it takes the exposures.

Merge before you upload. Panoramr takes the merged JPEG or TIFF and does not combine exposures. The HDR Effect slider on a scene's Image Adjustments tab is something else: it blends a filmic tone curve into the picture and does not merge exposures. See Image adjustments and weather.