PanoPress Previewer

Turn your 360° panoramic image into an interactive 360-degree scene, and share the URL for 24 hours. No fuss, no code. Perfect for quick checks and proof of concept demos. Also perfect for illustrations as well as photographic scenes!

Instant Visualization (No Metadata Required)

The standard workflow for viewing 360 content is surprisingly rigid. Platforms like Facebook or Google Photos rely heavily on EXIF Metadata—hidden tags inside the file that identify it as a panorama. If you are uploading a hand-drawn sketch or a raw Photoshop export, those tags don't exist, and the platforms will just display a flat, distorted image.

The PanoPress Previewer bypasses this entirely. It ignores metadata and prioritizes geometry. It assumes your image is intended to be a sphere and forces the projection. This allows for rapid iteration: draw, upload, view, repeat.

(Note: If you do need to publish your work to major platforms later, you can use my free Exif Fixer utility to calculate and inject the necessary metadata in just a couple of clicks.)

Beyond Photography: Sketching in 360°

While 360-degree imagery is usually associated with high-end cameras and drones, the medium has massive potential for artists and illustrators. I originally developed the PanoPress Previewer as a creative sandbox, a way to help students and artists experiment with 'drawn reality' without needing specialist viewers or complex tour building software.

The illustration preview process is simple: draw a scene on a flat piece of paper, snap a photo, crop it, and upload it here. The tool instantly wraps your 2D sketch onto a 3D sphere, allowing you to "step inside" your drawing. It’s a powerful way to teach students in creative media courses about immersive perspectives, helping them visualize how a flat canvas translates into a surrounding environment.

How It Works: The Equirectangular Projection

The tool is built around the industry-standard 2:1 aspect ratio.

The Math: To wrap perfectly around a sphere, an image needs to be exactly twice as wide as it is tall (representing 360° horizontally and 180° vertically).

The Flexibility: While pixel-perfect crops yield the best results, the engine is designed to handle "rough crops" reasonably well. This makes it ideal for quick classroom experiments or testing ideas where speed matters more than perfection.

Whether you are a photographer checking a stitch or image edit, or you're an illustrator creating a VR background, this tool provides the immediate feedback loop that is often missing from immersive workflows.