A panorama photo already gives people a good overview of your surroundings, so how can that experience be improved? Why, 3D effects of course. And that is what the team at 500 Startups-backed TeliportMe has done as it starts by adding four 3D effects — sunflare, snow, fog and rain — to its panorama app.
The 3D effects have been in testing on the Android app for a while now, but were only launched officially today. In a blog post, the company CEO Vineet Devaiah says the effects aren’t “about making the panorama look funky but about capturing the scene in a real immersive way.”
The 3D effects are added onto the viewer of TeliportMe’s panorama app and not the image itself, which means the image doesn’t get altered at all — it just gets another layer added to it.
Devaiah says the team decided to start with the four 3D effects because they represent the most prominent weather conditions. Clearly some nifty technology is at work here, as he tells us that the particles are rendered in realtime to become more dynamic, and the movement of the particles is also sensitive to the way your panorama moves. In fog and snow, zooming in and out clears your vision to see the photo as well.
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The 3D effects come at a price though. One effect costs $1 while the whole effects package costs $2. It remains to be seen whether users will be suitably interested to fork out money.
I tried out the effects and found that, though they do give a wow factor to your photo (it’s pretty fun making Singapore snow), it seems like they would work better only for certain outdoor shots. My indoor shots just looked really fake after trying out all those effects.
Here are a few examples that TeliportMe has taken to showcase its effects.
➤ Panorama 360: Google Play
Headline image via Shutterstock
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