Whilst most of us are happy to take virtual world snapshots in traditional snapshot form, some people like to get a tad more artistic and some like to embrace new technology features, such as 360 degree photography.
Linden Lab are on the case as they blog about A New Perspective on Second Life :
If pictures are worth a thousand words, 360 degree images must be worth millions. That’s why we decided to develop a feature called 360 Snapshots that will make it easy to capture and share 360º images from Second Life. Check out some of these samples!
The link is most definitely worth following so you can see a sample of the feature via Callum Linden. The feature isn’t ready for prime time just yet, but you do have the opportunity to play around with it by the way of a project viewer. There are details and instructions about this on the wiki.
The Wiki is most definitely worth a read because it points out the limitations of the feature right now, one of the most glaring is that you can’t just upload these images at the moment :
When this feature is complete, it will support ways for you to upload your images to different places to share them, as you can with conventional pictures now, but in the mean time…
We have assembled a web framework for viewing your images; it is available at the Bitbucket Repository.
The link to the Bitbucket Repository is on the wiki but what this means is that there will be some technical challenges for people at this early stage of the development of this feature but if you are comfortable with following the wiki instructions, or even have a friend who is happy to embark on following those instructions, then you can play around with this feature right now.
Remember that this is a project in its early stages and there will be issues, please report any issues you find on the Jira.
This feature is integrated with other snapshot improvements that were contributed by the author of The Black Dragon viewer.