panoramic images used for commercial and public purposes and information

DesertUSA

This website serves as a guide to the desert regions of the USA, it features panoramic images that show the audience what a certain area looks like.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

Japanese castle tours

This website features many QTVR images. You can select a view within and around a castle.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

some good examples of panoramic images

Mount Everest:
http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen2/full22.html

Inside a rugby scrum:
http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen6/f26-rugby.html

Gulf Cup football:
http://www.panoramas.dk/newspanos/2007/f4-gulf-cup.html

Scaffolding:
http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/worldwidepanorama/wwp907/html/YasushiShikano.html

Euro 2008 football figures
http://www.vrmag.org/issue31/UEFA_EURO_08_Championship.html

Inside a fridge:
http://viewer.vrway.com/vrmag_hotlist_issue_27/VR000010636.html?conf=Q&_from=http://www.vrmag.org/issue27/WHAT_S_IN_YOUR_FRIDGE_.html

quicktime vr on wikipedia

QuickTime VR (virtual reality) (also known as QTVR) is a type of image file format supported by Apple's QuickTime. It allows the creation and viewing of photographically captured panoramas and the exploration of objects through images taken at multiple viewing angles. It functions as a plugin for the standalone QuickTime Player, as well as working as a plugin for the QuickTime Web browser plugin. QuickTime VR will play on Windows computers as well as Apple Macintosh computers.

VR Panoramas are panoramic images which surround the viewer with an environment (inside, looking out), yielding a sense of place. They can be "stitched" together from several normal photographs or 2 images taken with a circular fisheye lens, or captured with specialized panoramic cameras, or rendered from 3D-modeled scenes. There are two type of VR Panorama:

• Single row panoramas, with a single horizontal row of photographs.

• multi-row panoramas, with several rows of photographs taken at different tilt angles.

Apple's QuickTime VR file format has two representations for panoramic nodes:

• cylindrical (consisting of one 360° image wrapped around the viewer)
• cubic (consisting of a cube of six 90°x 90° images surrounding the viewer).

To summarize the excerpts:

• QTVR is created by Apple
• Designed for QuickTime
• Cross-platformed format
  
• QTVR used purposely for panoramas

• There are two 'versions' of panoramas, and different ways of capturing for one

• Defines the two representations for panoramas