ExtremeDullard

This is a small guide to setup your Linux desktop to view 360 degree interactive photos - also called photospheres - and panoramas in Linux.

Regular image viewers generally don't support 360 images. There are very few native Linux viewers out that that supports them. The best I know of are:

• SphereView
• Lux

SphereView is available as a Flatpak for amd64 and arm64 platforms (I use both myself), while the author of Lux provides packages and AppImages but only for amd64.

What's more, I prefer the way SphereView uses the mouse to pan and tilt. So I recommend SphereView.

To install it, open a terminal and simply install the Flatpak from Flathub:

flatpak install io.github.dynobo.sphereview

And that's pretty much it for the basic installation: when you want to view a 360 image, right-click on it, select Open with, then select the SphereView application (your mileage may vary depending on the particular file manager you use, but this seems fairly universal).

But what if you want to automatically open a 360 image in SphereView and a flat image in your regular image viewer?

Unfortunately, SphereView doesn't render flat images correctly, so you can't use it as your default image viewer. But it's possible to write a small "shim" script that replaces the default image viewer, that inspects the image(s) the viewer is supposed to open, determines those that are flat and those that are spherical, then opens the flat images in the regular viewer and the spherical images in SphereView.

To do this:

• Install zenity and exiftool. On a Debian-based system for example, do:

sudo apt install zenity exiftool  

• Create a text file called auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.sh in your path with the following content:

#!/bin/bash  

FLATIMG_VIEWER="gtk-launch org.gnome.gThumb.desktop"  
PHOTOSPHERE_VIEWER="gtk-launch io.github.dynobo.sphereview.desktop"  

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then  
  IFS='|' read -ra ARGS <<< $(zenity --title "Choose one or more JPEG images to view" --multiple --file-selection --file-filter="*.jpg *.jpeg *.JPG *.JPEG")  
else  
  ARGS=("$@")  
fi  

FLATIMGS=()  
PHOTOSPHERES=()  

for FILE in "${ARGS[@]}"; do  
  if exiftool -X -xmp:ProjectionType "${FILE}" | grep -i equirectangular > /dev/null 2> /dev/null; then  
    PHOTOSPHERES+=("${FILE}")  
  else  
    FLATIMGS+=("${FILE}")  
  fi  
done  

if [ ${#FLATIMGS[@]} -gt 0 ]; then  
  ${FLATIMG_VIEWER} "${FLATIMGS[@]}"  
fi  

if [ ${#PHOTOSPHERES[@]} -gt 0 ]; then  
  echo TOTO  
  ${PHOTOSPHERE_VIEWER} "${PHOTOSPHERES[@]}"  
fi  

I like to put all my scripts in a ~/scripts directory in my home directory that I added to my PATH. What follows assumes the script resides in /home/user/scripts.

Also, the script - and the explanations below - assume spherical images are only in JPEG format. I only use JPEG for photospheres personally. If you use other formats, adapt the script and the installation as needed.

This script assumes you have Gtk installed, and your default image viewer is gThumb. Replace the xdg launcher gtk-launch and/or the viewer org.gnome.gThumb to the launcher and image viewer of your choice.

If you want to reuse the default image viewer to view JPEG images, you can find out which one it is currently set to by doing:

xdg-mime query default image/jpeg  

• Make the script executable:

chmod +x ~/scripts/auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.sh  

• The script needs a .desktop entry so it can be used as the new default application for the image/jpeg mimetype: create ~/.local/share/applications/auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.desktop with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]  
Name=Automatically open image as a normal image or as a photosphere  
Exec=/home/user/scripts/auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.sh %U  
MimeType=image/jpeg  
Terminal=false  
Type=Application  

• Finally, change your default viewer for the image/jpeg minetype to the script:

xdg-mime default auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.desktop image/jpeg  

And that's it! Now when you open an image in your file manager, SphereView will be used to view it if it's a properly-formatted 360° image, as shown in the video.

This is a small guide to setup your Linux desktop to view 360 degree interactive photos - also called photospheres - and panoramas in Linux.

Regular image viewers generally don't support 360 images. There are very few native Linux viewers out that that supports them. The best I know of are:

• SphereView
• Lux

SphereView is available as a Flatpak for amd64 and arm64 platforms (I use both myself), while the author of Lux provides packages and AppImages but only for amd64.

What's more, I prefer the way SphereView uses the mouse to pan and tilt. So I recommend SphereView.

To install it, open a terminal and simply install the Flatpak from Flathub:

flatpak install io.github.dynobo.sphereview

And that's pretty much it for the basic installation: when you want to view a 360 image, right-click on it, select Open with, then select the SphereView application (your mileage may vary depending on the particular file manager you use, but this seems fairly universal).

But what if you want to automatically open a 360 image in SphereView and a flat image in your regular image viewer?

Unfortunately, SphereView doesn't render flat images correctly, so you can't use it as your default image viewer. But it's possible to write a small "shim" script that replaces the default image viewer, that inspects the image(s) the viewer is supposed to open, determines those that are flat and those that are spherical, then opens the flat images in the regular viewer and the spherical images in SphereView.

To do this:

• Install zenity and exiftool. On a Debian-based system for example, do:

sudo apt install zenity exiftool  

• Create a text file called auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.sh in your path with the following content:

#!/bin/bash  

FLATIMG_VIEWER="gtk-launch org.gnome.gThumb.desktop"  
PHOTOSPHERE_VIEWER="gtk-launch io.github.dynobo.sphereview.desktop"  

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then  
  IFS='|' read -ra ARGS <<< $(zenity --title "Choose one or more JPEG images to view" --multiple --file-selection --file-filter="*.jpg *.jpeg *.JPG *.JPEG")  
else  
  ARGS=("$@")  
fi  

FLATIMGS=()  
PHOTOSPHERES=()  

for FILE in "${ARGS[@]}"; do  
  if exiftool -X -xmp:ProjectionType "${FILE}" | grep -i equirectangular > /dev/null 2> /dev/null; then  
    PHOTOSPHERES+=("${FILE}")  
  else  
    FLATIMGS+=("${FILE}")  
  fi  
done  

if [ ${#FLATIMGS[@]} -gt 0 ]; then  
  ${FLATIMG_VIEWER} "${FLATIMGS[@]}"  
fi  

if [ ${#PHOTOSPHERES[@]} -gt 0 ]; then  
  echo TOTO  
  ${PHOTOSPHERE_VIEWER} "${PHOTOSPHERES[@]}"  
fi  

I like to put all my scripts in a ~/scripts directory in my home directory that I added to my PATH. What follows assumes the script resides in /home/user/scripts.

Also, the script - and the explanations below - assume spherical images are only in JPEG format. I only use JPEG for photospheres personally. If you use other formats, adapt the script and the installation as needed.

This script assumes you have Gtk installed, and your default image viewer is gThumb. Replace the xdg launcher gtk-launch and/or the viewer org.gnome.gThumb to the launcher and image viewer of your choice.

If you want to reuse the default image viewer to view JPEG images, you can find out which one it is currently set to by doing:

xdg-mime query default image/jpeg  

• Make the script executable:

chmod +x ~/scripts/auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.sh  

• The script needs a .desktop entry so it can be used as the new default application for the image/jpeg mimetype: create ~/.local/share/applications/auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.desktop with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]  
Name=Automatically open image as a normal image or as a photosphere  
Exec=/home/user/scripts/auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.sh %U  
MimeType=image/jpeg  
Terminal=false  
Type=Application  

• Finally, change your default viewer for the image/jpeg minetype to the script:

xdg-mime default auto_open_image_as_normal_or_photosphere.desktop image/jpeg  

And that's it! Now when you open an image in your file manager, SphereView will be used to view it if it's a properly-formatted 360° image, as shown in the video.

I created this community yesterday. A few folks joined, and now the count sits at 46 subscribers with <46 local subscribers on any Lemmy instance I visit (here or here for instance). But on Piefed, it's 16 subscribers and 17 local 🙂

This is not new either. I've never seen the subscriber count work properly in Piefed.

360° camera owners know how insanely delicate the lenses are. This is a 3D-printed cover to protect the lenses of a Ricoh Theta X camera, a base to bolt onto something heavy to create a stable stand and a variant to mount on a selfie stick.

360° camera owners know how insanely delicate the lenses are. This is a 3D-printed cover to protect the lenses of a Ricoh Theta X camera, a base to bolt onto something heavy to create a stable stand and a variant to mount on a selfie stick.

Trump has no plan for his war on Iran. He can’t even come up with a coherent justification for it. Meanwhile, his economy is tanking and even some of his supporters are jumping ship.

Is this the week the tide turns on him for good?

Recent scare stories obscure the fact that the risk posed by artificial intelligence is most likely to come from its misuse by the powerful

I shot this one this morning. Nice spring equinox sunrise on our lake.

This is the last 360 video I made this winter, to show a friend how to cross-country ski in the skate style. This one is the full unreframed 360° video. I just edited it to obscure my face, repoint it and lower the resolution so I wouldn't overwhelm my PeerTube instance.

Unfortunately, the PeerTube player doesn't support 360 videos, and it won't anytime soon from what I read on the PeerTube github. So you'll have to download the video locally (choose Original file when downloading) and play it with a player that does, such as VLC.

I can't seem to find a video sharing site that has a 360 player:

• DailyMotion's used to play 360 videos, but it doesn't anymore.
• Vimeo requires age verification with a government ID so they can stuff that where the sun don't shine, to put it politely.
• YouTube works but I refuse to use Google services.

If you know a video sharing site that supports 360 videos and isn't a privacy nightmare, I'd love to know!

Welcome to the 360cameras community!

This is a place to discuss 360° degree photography, video-making, specific cameras, editing and of course sharing cool 360 photos and videos - also called photo and video spheres.

Making panoramas and full 360 photos, and occasionally 360 videos, is one of my hobbies. I find those interactive immersive photos fascinating. And on a practical side, they're great to share details of places you want someone to inspect at their own leisure, like buildings in the construction industry or houses in the realty business.

Strangely enough, there doesn't seem to be any community dedicated to this topic on Lemmy. So I figured I'd create one.

And to start with, I'll share photos I shot this winter during my last cross-country trek. I hope you enjoy 🙂

!360cameras@piefed.social

All about 360 degree action videos and photography: camera reviews, techniques, tips and tricks and sharing cool 360 photos and videos.

This is our lake, captured by the motorized IP camera I installed in a tree to watch nature from inside the house. I spun the camera around, taking stills at regular intervals, then stitched all the images together to create this panorama.

This was taken mid-afternoon. We live high up north, so the shadows tend to be long even at noon here. The temperatures have gone above freezing for a couple of weeks, so the lake is melting.