Panorama Viewers

There are basically three types of viewers for spherical panoramas:

• Java based Viewers run on any platform that supports Java.
• Plugin based viewers require a plugin (Quicktime, Shockwave) to run and might be platform specific.
• Stand alone viewers that are executables for a specific platform. Unlike Java and plugin-based viewers these are not meant for use within web pages.

Java based Viewers

Free

• PTViewer was the first Java viewer. It was developed originally by Helmut Dersch and is now maintained and enhanced by Fulvio Senore

• Panorado Applet is a Java viewer applet. It only shows a "flat" view but it is fast, so it is suited for larger images where the normal immersive-style warping isn't needed.

• PURE Player for Java (by ImmerVision) is a Java viewer applet that supports cylindrical, spherical and cubic panoramic images.

• PURE Player for PRO Java (by ImmerVision) is a free Java viewer applet that supports cylindrical, spherical and cubic panoramic images. It also supports user interfaces.

Commercial

There are some commercial Java based viewers. Most of them are either a PTViewer clone or less functional.

Plugin based Viewers

Free

• Quicktime is available for Apple Macintosh and Windows. Requires panorama in QTVR movie format. (PanoCube or Pano2QTVR convert from equirectangular to .mov on Windows)

• freepv is an open source cross-platform viewer for QTVR and other panorama formats.

• DevalVR is a Windows browser plugin that displays both cubic QuickTime-VR panoramas in QTVR movie format panoramas. See http://www.devalvr.com/ for details.

• PangeaVR is a Mac OS X browser plugin that displays both cubic QuickTime-VR panoramas in QTVR movie format and equirectangular (spherical) JPEG panoramas. See http://www.pangeasoft.net/pano/plugin/pangeavr.html for details.

Commercial

• There are no known commercial plugins for standard web delivery of panoramas

Flash or Shockwave based Viewers

Free

• CuTy is a tiny, dedicated viewer for (single node, JPEG encoded, cubic) QTVR .mov files based for Flash Player 10 and newer. Its functionality is deliberately kept minimal.

• pan0 is an open source, Flash 9 based player for panoramas in equirectangular format. The application was formely known as "fspp". See http://pan0.net/page.php?page=pan0 for details.

• PanoSalado is an open source Flash 10 and Flex based viewer for cubic, equirectangular (spherical), cylindrical and QTVR panoramas. It handles multi-resolution tiled panoramas, and playback of panoramic video in common projections. It supports 2D & 3D hotspots, audio, video, and being extended via XML or directly via Actionscript (AS3) and/or MXML. See PanoSalado's blog, download source and examples from the IVRPA repository and access the API.

• Salado Player is a fork from PanoSalado created in 2010. SaladoPlayer features configuration via xml files and additional modules, along with a module api.

• PURE Player for Flash is a free Flash 9 based player that supports cylindrical, spherical and cubic panoramas.

• SPi-V is a very sophisticated and smooth viewer based on Macromedia Shockwave that handles panoramas completely in graphics card memory (free version with logo).

• Syborg Rooms can connect multiple panoramas and enrich the expierence with videos, images and text. Rooms are build with Syborg Architect - an easy graphical interface. It supports iPhone and iPad as well.

Commercial

• The Flash Panorama Player is a cross-platform viewer that displays QTVR movies as well as equirectangular (spherical) and cylindrical panoramas. Cube faces and stripes can also be handled. It supports SWF-plugins to extend its functionality (for example to integrate distorted FLV-movies as hotspots).

• Pano2VR (formerly Pano2QTVR) creates Flash 9 and Flash 10-compatible SWF files with included spherical viewer. It also creates QuickTime VR content and can output images in a number of different projections including equirect and cubefaces.

• KRPano is a Flash 9 & 10 based panorama viewer with a wide range of configuration options. These include different projections such as stereographic, 'little planet', fisheye, Vedutismo, and 'architectural'. It can handle cubefaces, equirects and QTVR .mov files, and it can embed other media including audio and FLV videos into panoramas.

Online Services

• Virtual Tour Architect allows users to create virtual tours with panorama images. The tours are displayed as flash (PC) and html5 (iPhone, iPad). The tours are created very fast through a very easy-to-use interface. It is based on Syborg Rooms.

HTML5 based Viewers

Free

• Syborg Rooms exports virtual tours in flash and html5. Based on the users device the export shows the supported format.
• VR5 Pano Viewer. You need to prepare the images to him (cube faces in 2 resolutions. Can redirect to your standard player in case the browser is not on an iPad/iPhone.

Commercial

• Syborg Rooms Pro Version

Stand alone Viewers

• FSPViewer is a free hardware accelerated stand alone viewer by Fulvio Senore (Windows only).

• panoglview is an Open Source hardware accelerated stand alone viewer for Equirectangular Projection images (Windows, Linux and OS X).

• panoviewer is an Open Source stand-alone viewer now superceded by panoglview (Windows, Linux).

• PTViewer, the original standalone viewer created by Helmut Dersch in C for X-Windows available from one of the mirrors (Linux) or the 3.2 version in compiled Java from his page (Windows).

• Quicktime also works as a standalone viewer (Windows, Mac).

• DevalVR has a stand alone version, too (Windows).

• freepv is a standalone hardware accelerated QTVR viewer as well as a plugin.

• Panini is an open source panoramic image viewer and perspective tool for all Qt platforms, including Linux, Windows, OSX. It can display files in many panoramic formats. Your video driver must support OpenGL version 1.5, 2.0 for full functionality. Get Panini at sf.net/projects/pvqt, build on OS X or Build Panini on Other Unixes.

• Panorado is a full-featured image viewer/browser supporting panoramas (JPEG & QTVR). Shareware. (Windows)

• PURE Player for Windows is a free standalone version of PURE Player viewer for Windows OS that supports cylindrical, spherical and cubic panoramas.

• CubeWorld for iPhone and iPod Touch is a free app that plays cubeface-based panoramas (max 1024px cubefaces) using OpenGL. It can store panoramas locally for offline viewing.

• iPano for iPhone and iPad, awesome pano viewing app. Lets you keep a high res portfolio (8192 x 4096).

• PangeaVR for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch is an app that plays panoramas (max. 2048x1024px equirects on iPhone/iPod, 4096x2048 on iPad) using OpenGL. The standard version of PangeaVR is free, the Pro version (which can store panoramas locally for offline viewing) costs $5.99.

• PanoBender for Windows CE is a free standalone viewer for JPEG images of equirectangular and cylindrical panoramas.

• SPi-V is also available as stand alone viewer (requires Shockwave plugin) (Windows, OS X).

External Links

• http://www.panoramaphotographer.com/comparisons/ shows working examples of a large number of different web-based panorama players.