Creating Facebook 360 photos on your iOS devices like your iPhone with either the iPhone Camera app or Google’s Street View app for iOS.
First I will say you can do this on other devices as well such as Android devices via Google Camera, but since I only have access to and iPhone this is all I can show you. I”m sure the steps are similar but the steps in the apps you use will be different.
Both the Google Street View App and the iOS Camera app were tested on an iPhone 6s running iOS 9.3.2. and using Facebook app version 58.
There is an option to embed 360 video as well, but you need a 360 camera to do this and at the moment I do not. So see the Facebook FAQ for more information on video 360.
Creating Facebook 360 Photos on iOS with the iOS Camera App.
Open the Camera app and switch to pano mode. Create your pano making sure it is not too narrow. There is no way to really know, but if you make it to narrow it will not upload in the Facebook 360 format. The wider the panorama is the more movement you will have left and right after you have uploaded it to Facebook. Once you have your panorama created you can now upload it to Facebook.
Uploading your iPhone pano to Facebook.
You can upload your pano photo to Facebook either directly from your iOS device such as and iPhone or you can upload it from your computer.
Uploading from your iOS device such as an iPhone.
Open the Facebook app, create a new post by selecting “Photo”, then select the pano from your camera roll, click done. Add text, description, and tag your friends etc if you wish, then click post. Your photo is uploaded and you are sent to the Facebook 360 post on your feed. Although the text and such is not required it is nice to have a description of what the photo is about.
Uploading from your computer.
When uploading on your computer, you will have to save the photo to your computer first. Use whatever method you are using now to get the pano on your computer. Open the Facebook website and go to your feed, create a new post by choosing “photo/video” and then select the pano photo you put your computer. While it is uploading on your computer, if you see the following graphic, you know it is uploading as a Facebook 360 Photo.
Add text,description, and tag your friends etc if you wish, then click post. Your photo is uploaded and you are sent to the Facebook 360 post on your feed. Although the text and such is not required it is nice to have a description of what the photo is about.
Here is an example of what the photo will look like once uploaded. I uploaded a pano I took on my iPhone via Facebook website.
iPhone Pano photo sample uploaded via a computer and the Facebook website.
Double-click the below to see it in 360 view on Facebook.
Since it is a panorama, you will only be able to go left and right and a slight up and down movement.
Using Google’s Street View App for iOS
Now if you want the full 360 experience you will need to use another app like Google Street View to get the full left and right movement and up and down movement in your photo.
Go and download the Google’s Street View App for iOS from the app store. It is free so why not use it.
Open the Google Street View app on your phone.
The first time you open the app it will show you the steps on how to a capture full 360 photo using the app. If you skipped the intro or need to go back and review the tips, you can always see it again by clicking “Tips” from the menu in the top left as shown here.
When the app is opened, you are seeing a map of where you are and the option to open the camera at the bottom of the screen. Click the orange “+” sign to start your new photo.
On the next screen you need to select the source of your photo. You can use an external 360 camera, import an existing 360 photo, or, as we are going to do in this case, you can use your iPhone or iOS camera. Click the Camera button.
You will now see the following screen with the image from your camera, a White circle in the center, and the Orange Dot. As it says, you want to point the camera until the Orange dot is inside the white circle. As soon as you do, it will take your first picture.
You will continue taking pictures by rotating yourself and your iPhone around in a circle until you get the full 360 view capture.
As you move around you will see another view with the white circle and Orange dot. Each time you get the Orange dot within the circle the app will take a picture. No pressing of any button required.
Once you have completed the first 360 view you need to get the above view and looking down views. Think of it as dividing the photo into and upper, middle, and lower section. You just took the middle section so now you have to take the upper and lower sections.
Point your camera up until you see the Orange dot and white circle appear and repeat the process of taking pictures until the upper and lower sections are filled in. As you move your camera around, if you still see the Orange dot and white circle on the screen, you know you still have some photos to take to complete the 360 view.
Showing the upper and lower views where some photos are needed to complete the 360 view to get the up and down views.
Once you have finished your Google Street View 360 photo click the “Check Mark” to save your photo.
If after saving and viewing the photo created by Google Street View you don’t like the look of it and want to delete it you can. When viewing the image, click the 3 dots in the top right and you are presented with the following menu.
You can choose delete to delete the bad image. For and image that you do like, you can assign a place location to the photo here as well. When you are done, it’s time to upload your 360 photo to Facebook.
Uploading your Google Street View 360 image it to Facebook.
Open the Facebook app on your iPhone or iOS device and create a new post by choosing “Photo” in the Facebook post section. When the dialog comes up to select your photo, select “tap here to change” under the camera roll heading and navigate to the folder called 360 photos. This is where the Google Street View app saves your photos. Select the 360 photo you just created and click done. It will show the wide panorama version of your photo now in your post. Look for the below icon to be on the picture in the lower right hand corner to make sure Facebook is recognizing it as a 360 photo.
Add text,description, and tag your friends etc if you wish, then click post. Your photo is uploaded and you are sent to the Facebook 360 post on your feed. Although the text and such is not required it is nice to have a description of what the photo is about.
Google Streetview 360 photo sample.
Double-click the below to see it in the 360 view on Facebook.
So now that you know how to do it, go out and have some fun. If you want to know more about Facebook 360 photos I would read the Facebook 360 Help document.
See a related article of mine about how to go live on Facebook.
#Facebook360 #360photo #GoogleStreetViewapp #Pano #Panorama #tutorial #Facebook360photo #iOS #iOSCameraapp
