360° vision, from panoramas to VR

International audienceWith a £5 Google Cardboard and a cell phone, everyone can live a 360° immersive experience. Youtube provides a huge amount of content, professional or private. Blockbusters like Starwars, groups like Gorillaz post their latest film in 360 Vr format to literally plunge the audience into their worlds of images and sounds. 360° photos are now accessible with a single click at a reasonable price. In museums like Stonehenge or Museum Victoria in Melbourne, cylinder screens offer a collective experience, with a one to one scaled image. What seems to be a state of the art technology is in fact 230 years old. Everything started in 1787 in Edinburgh when Robert Barker (1739/1806) painted the first panorama. Barker did not just invent the 360° image, but also the scenography that makes the illusion perfect. The first patent was granted by American engineer Robert Fulton (1765/1815) in 1799 1 . It refers to “a circular picture without boundaries” but also describes the architecture, the position of the viewers, the way to get in and out. Between the end of the 18 th century and the beginning of the 20 th , panoramas were very successful and huge buildings were made such as the London Colosseum built in 1827 or the Hittorff’s “Rotonde des panoramas pour les Champs-Élysées” in 1842. The London Colosseum was also stated as a landmark and a belvedere.It is a common thought that cinema killed panoramas. It is partially true. At the dawn of the 20 th century, most panoramas closed, were destroyed or transformed. The memory of their greatness faded away. A very few remained until a late rebirth with digital techniques. But in fact, the idea of an immersive panoramic view has still being developed and improve over time. The Occulus Rift or HTC Vive can be considered of the heirs of panoramas. In the article, we will follow those evolutions and transformations from panoramas to VR