I have been shooting “spatial” photos for nearly ten years with a variety of cameras, and in a variety of formats. Creating more immersive type of photos is nothing new, Carlton Watkins whose work in Yosemite predates Ansel Adams, shot with a stereo camera in 1861! Panorama photography has been a popular niche as well. But what is the most immersive type of photo for viewing in Apple Vision Pro?
Panorama Photos
The iPhone camera app has supported making panorama photos for a while. AVP recognizes these if the aspect ratio is greater than 4:1, and turns them into a scalable cylindrical projection. This is a nice way to reimagine panorama photos that people may have taken in the past, and the Vision photo app does a nice job of displaying them in a wraparound manner. But there is no stereo depth, and the field of view is limited especially in the vertical dimension. Take a look at this reformat where I took out the stereo, and did a cylindrical projection of this scene. (Note: On the AVP if you pinch and hold to get the menu, then save to files you can open in Photos app. )
Spatial Photo / Video
Apple is calling these stereo photos spatial photos and the VisionOS native photo app recognizes them as stereo. To get this format I first cropped down to a square format, side by side, then ran through a conversion process on Mac using Apple’s command line. The encoding using HV-HEVC is somewhat unique to Apple. (Note: On the AVP if you pinch and hold to get the menu, then save to files you can open in Photos app. )
360 Stereo
Apple doesn’t have a name for full 360 equirectangular, over under photos, but in my opinion these are the most immersive and flexible formats for spatial photographers to shoot. As shown on this page you can create images in all the formats by truly capturing the entire scene in front (and behind) you! I’ve uploaded this image to Youtube, at the current 8K maximum size, which sounds like a lot but for 360 degrees is still well below what looks good on Apple Vision Pro. Here is a (direct link to full size image) Reality Player (5/10/24 Tested with version 2.0.5) is currently the best app to display this type of image. Save to Files and open in Reality Player. Set the format to 360VR, over under to display correctly.
About the Image
This image was created using a single Lumix S5, Rokinon 12mm on a custom tripod head. It is one of several methods I use to capture immersive photos and video.
