[Note: I updated this blog entry in August 2013 to include information about a great panorama tool called PTgui and to provide more info about taking panorama photos.]
A panorama overlay can give you the impression that you’re inside a building or cockpit, allowing you to spin around and zoom in and out. Creating the source files for panoramas is not easy, but if you use the right tools and equipment, the process can be painless—and even fun.
A panorama overlay requires six images that represent the inside of a cube. Here are the six images used for the courtyard panorama that appears in the DPS Tips app (Overlay Basics > Panoramas).
You can use Photoshop to stitch together the source image to be used as the basis for the six cubic images. However, converting a 3D panorama image into the six images requires a third-party tool such as PTgui or Pano2VR. PTgui and Pano2VR cost about the same amount, but PTgui is more versatile. With PTgui, you can stitch together the images to create the source file and then generate the six images from that source file.
Here’s how to create the images required to build a panorama overlay in DPS.