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3 Ways to Add 360 Photos to Facebook

In this post we will talk about spherical photos, otherwise known as 360 photos. I’m going to show you three ways to add 360 photos to Facebook so that they display in 3D form.

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In this post we will talk about spherical photos, otherwise known as 360 photos. I’m going to show you ways to add 360 photos to Facebook so that they display in 3D form. One of them does not require the installation of any program and the whole process takes place on-line. Two more are solutions using applications that will help you with more photos, or if you do not chat to send large files to an external online service.

Photo spheres on Facebook are flat, what to do?

If you create or have photo spheres or 360 panoramas that you want to post on Facebook, you may have a problem with the fact that the photos are “flat”. Having a photo sphere with an aspect ratio of 1:2 when you add them to Facebook, or in Google Maps, they should be displayed in a 3D view that is interactive. In this way, we can look around at all sides and even use the VR mode.

This is the effect we want to achieve

Photo without exif data

This is how it looks on our computer, but on the Internet it is nice if you show such a photo in 3D form.

how to add 360 photos on Facebook

Unfortunately, this does not always happen and after processing, scaling, compression or other treatments, your photos display like a regular photo. It’s a bit like a rolled out globe that could be a ball.

Technical requirements for 360 photos for Facebook

To add such photos we must meet several conditions:

  • create photos using a special camera for photo spheres, using a SLR camera, with a panoramic head or a phone or tablet equipped with an application for photo spheres
  • Photo with 2:1 aspect ratio
  • Metadata suggesting that the photo is a 360×180 spherical panorama

Spherical photo metadata

Metadata is all “text” information stored in an image file. This can include information about camera settings such as shutter speed, aperture, serial number, date and time of shooting. You can save a lot in the metadata, but for us the most important will be information for Facebook that the photo is spherical.

Inject metadata into photos

In order for Facebook to recognize a 360 photo as a spherical panorama, we must meet at least one condition by adding one of the following information to the EXIF data:

  • Projection type – suggesting that the photo is spherical
  • Make and model of supported camera or spherical camera

Projection types

In panoramic and spherical photography, there are several different types of projection depending on the way we photographed and in which we want to show the photo. When adding information to EXIF data, we must use their English names. The most commonly used on Facebook are:

  • spherical panoramas – “equirectangular” k whose speech
  • cylindrical panoramas – “cylindrical” are those wide “stripes” that we can do using the Camera application in the iPhone
Panorama from your phone

Cameras and spherical cameras

Even if we took a picture with a spherical camera, we could somehow lose EXIF data. In this case, we can restore them or cheat Facebook a little and pretend to be one of the supported cameras. We can also do it in a situation when we photographed with a SLR camera using a panoramic head and counted photos in PTGu or Autopano Color.

Here are the cameras from which Facebook recognizes photo spheres:

  • Ricoh Theta S – see on Ceneo .
  • Giroptic 360 Cam
  • Samsung Gear 360 used Tractor
  • LG 360 Cam
  • IC Realtech ALLie
  • 360Fly
  • Panono
Xioami Panoramic Camera
Mi 360° Sphere Panoramic Camera Kit – a webcam that I use myself on vacation. See on Ceneo .

Adding metadata to photo spheres online

If we want to add one photo sphere to Facebook at a time, we can use the simple Panorama Exif Patcher tool that you will find on the https://nadirpatch.com/exif/ page.

1st Open the Panorama Exif Patcher page

https://nadirpatch.com/exif/

2. Add a photo

You can add a photo by clicking on the white box, or by dragging the photo to it.

Panorama Exif Patcher

3. We download the photo

After adding a photo, after a while our finished photo should be downloaded automatically to the disk.

Panorama Exif Patcher

Fixing Multiple Photos in Panorama Exif Patcher

It may also happen that the photo we add does not have the right proportions. It is worth checking why this is happening and coming back with the correct photos.

On the site we can also add more photos at once, however, it is a service paid from $ 5 for 100 photos. In this case, read on how to do it for free using the computer application.

batch pano exif - Urbanflavour.pl

Add metadata to photo spheres using the app

If we have a lot of 360 photos that do not display as spherical, a computer application is a good option. My favorite solution for panoramic photos is Exif Fixer , which has its own apps for Mac OS, Windows, and even Linux. Exif Fixer, like Panorama Exif Patcher, has its online version.

Exif Fixer

Exif Fixer is a simple and at the same time ideal program for “fixing panoramas”. It allows you to add some important information to your EXIF data:

Exif Fixer
Download Exif Fixer.
  • adds projection type – equirectangular/cylindrical
  • adds information about one of the 360 cameras
  • allows you to determine the north
  • edit photos in batch (set parameters for the first one and all the rest get the same EXIF data)

Exif Fixer support

The application is very simple to use. In most situations, they are enough for only 3 steps:

1. Add a photo(s)

If you add one photo, drag it into the program window. We can use the Choose JPEG or PNG button but further steps/interface is in German.

Exif fixer dodawanie zdjec - Urbanflavour.pl

In the case of many photos, we can drag them all the same and select the “Batch” option so that all changes are made according to the same.

2. Save*

To add the data you need to Facebook or Google Maps, just click Add Metdata and you’re done.

* Ifyou want to keep the original, you can uncheck “Delete Orignal Image”

If we want the file to pretend to be a photo from one of the 360 cameras, we can use the “Insert Fake Camera Data ” option and select, for example, Ricoh Theta S

Photos Exif Editor

The second application that I recommend and gives more possibilities to manipulate EXIF data is Photos Exif Editor, which can be downloaded from the App Store . The application allows you to easily edit EXIF data and, among other things, also easily add geotags to photos using a map.

This application, unfortunately, does not allow you to add a projection type, but we can still give information about the camera model.

We will download the application here.

1. Add a photo

To add a photo, you can drag it to the program window or select Add Photos/Folders. We can also add the iPhotos library.

Photo Exif Editor

In the left column we have added photos, and in the right exIF data for editing.

2. Add the camera model

In this example, we will “pretend” that the photo was taken by a Ricoh Theta S camera. For this we look for the Camera section and change or fill in the fields:

  • Make: Ricoh
  • Camera model name: Ricoh Theta S
Photo Exif Editor add camera

3. Save photos

If we have everything ready, click the green button “Start Process ” and choose a place to save the photos.

Photo Exif Editor save file

I do not know about you, but I have been having a problem with overwriting existing photos for some time and I save the changed files in another place. I haven’t found a solution to that yet. If you have a way to do it, let me know in the comments.

Create resets

There is a saved photo and the panorama is displayed on Facebook as we wanted, then we can speed up this process in the future by creating the so-called peseta.

Photo Exif Editor creating presets
  1. In the main window of the program, in the middle click Presets>Edit Presets
  2. In the new window, in the lower left corner click “+” to add a new peseta
  3. We give it a name
  4. Fill in the Make and Camera Model Name fields as before.
  5. Click Apply
Photo Exif Editor creating presets

In this way, we can add these two pieces of information for each subsequent photo, they choose only a peseta from the list that I will fill in our fields regarding the camera model.



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Fotograf eventowy - Marcin Krokowski