# 360° Media

*Click and drag to move through the image.*

<br />

360° media, consisting of 360° videos and images, is a great way for
developers to enhance traditional apps with immersive content. You can embed a
360° video into a travel app to provide viewers with an Underwater scuba
diving tour as they plan a vacation, or into a home-building app that takes
prospective buyers on a virtual walkthrough of their home before it's built.

Although 360° media supports true stereoscopic VR playback through
compatibility with VR platforms like Google Cardboard, it can also be displayed
in a simple "magic window" that can be viewed from desktop browsers and mobile
apps without any special VR hardware.

## Common formats

You can create 360° media in either mono or stereo format. Images and video
generally need to be stored in the equirectangular-panoramic (equirect-pano)
format, which is a common format supported by many capture solutions.

|---|---|
| Mono 360 uses a single pano. | Stereo 360 uses two stacked panos. |
| ![](https://developers.google.com/static/vr/images/concepts/vrview-mono-stereo.jpg) | ![](https://developers.google.com/static/vr/images/concepts/vrview-mono-stereo.jpg) |

### 360° images

- 360° images can be stored as png, jpeg, or gif. We recommend you use
  jpeg for improved compression.

- For maximum compatibility and performance, image dimensions should be powers
  of two (e.g., 2048 or 4096).

- Mono images should be 2:1 aspect ratio (e.g. 4096 x 2048).

- Stereo images should be 1:1 aspect ratio (e.g. 4096 x 4096).

### 360° videos

- 360° videos should be stored as mp4s encoded with h264.

- Mono videos should be 2:1 aspect ratio.

- Stereo videos should be 1:1 aspect ratio.

- Some older devices cannot decode video larger than 1080p (1920x1080). If
  maximum compatibility and quality is a priority, we recommend that developers
  provide both a monoscopic 1920x1080 video and a stereo video at 2048x2048 or
  higher.

## How to embed your media

For Android and Web developers, VR View allows you to embed 360° media into
websites on desktop and mobile and native apps on Android.

- [VR View on Android](https://developers.google.com/vr/android/samples/vrview)
- [VR View on the Web](https://developers.google.com/vr/concepts/vrview-web)

For iOS developers, the GVRkit library (provided as part of the Google VR SDK for iOS)
provides similar functionality and includes samples demonstrating its usage.

- [Panorama](https://github.com/googlevr/gvr-ios-sdk/tree/master/Samples/Panorama) demonstrates how to embed 360° images.
- [VideoWidgetDemo](https://github.com/googlevr/gvr-ios-sdk/tree/master/Samples/VideoWidgetDemo) demonstrates how to embed 360° video.

## Media capture

Here are some basic guidelines for how to capture and host 360° media.

### Real world capture

There are multiple options for taking 360° photos and videos that support
the equirect-pano format described above. These options include:

- [Cardboard Camera App](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.vr.cyclops):
  This app for Android allows users to quickly capture 360° images. To use
  these images with VR View,
  [download](https://support.google.com/cardboard/answer/6333620)
  the image, and then use our
  [conversion tool](https://storage.googleapis.com/cardboard-camera-converter/index.html)
  to create a stereo 360° image that meets Cardboard's image
  specifications.

- [Ricoh Theta](https://theta360.com/): A very popular,
  relatively inexpensive solution for capturing mono 360° images and
  videos.

### CG capture

Imagery for 360° media isn't limited to captures from the real world. CGI
software can generate 360° images and videos for everything from
architectural walkthroughs to movie previews. Some of the most popular capture
solutions are listed below:

- [360 Panorama Capture for Unity](https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/camera/360-panorama-capture-38755):
  A free, easy-to-use 360° capture plugin for Unity.

- [Unreal](https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Platforms/VR/StereoPanoramicCapture/): Stero panoramic capture in Unreal.

- (Unsupported) [Domemaster3D](https://github.com/zicher3d-org/domemaster-stereo-shader/):
  A free solution for capturing mono and stereo 360° images from Maya / Autodesk 3ds Max.

- [Renderman](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0lYKpimsJgWfjFwa2xLQlVGNnJXcGxvbmNJbzIwUkRWQ2YtOHB5blNMNjlXSUlxbmJNVVU?resourcekey=0-VmfydzoGAzYzXN020CDS3w&usp=sharing):
  Open-source library for capturing 360° content.

- [Rendering Omnidirectional Stereo Content](https://developers.google.com/static/vr/jump/rendering-ods-content.pdf):
  A whitepaper for anyone interested in writing their own 360° capture
  solutions.

## Hosting

You can host 360° videos on [YouTube](https://youtube.com).
The advantages of hosting on YouTube are:

- Ease of use
- Large built-in audience
- High-quality hosting infrastructure

Alternatively, you can host the media on your own web server via HTTP/HTTPS.