Guide to Viewing VR Content

This guide is to help people who are new to VR or don't even have VR yet and want help getting started. VR can get pretty technical but I’ll keep this as simple as possible.

Viewing My Content

If you’re just trying to view my VNDRScale content and need to know what settings to use in your viewing app, try these!

Projection:  Equirectangular (aka barrel or panorama)

Viewing Angle: 360 degrees

Stereo:   Over/under (not all of my images are stereo! Try turning stereo off if you’re seeing double)

VR Hardware

If you don't even have VR yet here's your options broken up by cost.

• $0
  So long as you have a computer (or phone) you can still view VR content but it’s not the best experience. Any good media player (like VLC) can load VR videos and let you pan around, although it might not work for stereo videos (see Important VR Viewing Concepts below if you don’t know what “stereo” means)
  Pictures will sometimes also work in a media player but you’ll have better luck using an online viewer like https://renderstuff.com/tools/360-panorama-web-viewer/
• Less than $50
  If you haven’t tried VR before, this is how to get started. You can buy a Google Cardboard style VR headset that uses your phone for almost nothing. There’s some good info at https://arvr.google.com/cardboard/ and you can find them on eBay by searching for “smartphone VR headset”. Don’t pay more than $50, these things are just a plastic phone holder with some lenses. You won’t be playing games but they work perfectly for videos and pictures and will even let you look around!
• Less than $1000
  This is where you’ll be looking at the Oculus, Samsung Gear, etc. I don’t know much about using these but AFAIK you need to download a viewing app. Whirligig, DeoVR, and immerGallery should all work.
• More than $2000
  You’ll be looking at something like Vive or Pimax. Don’t get one of these unless you’ve tried something cheaper and know VR is fun to you. These are the racecar option and, like racecars, they require technical skill to get the most out of and will breakdown for the smallest reasons. I can’t help you here.

Important VR Viewing Concepts

When you’re viewing VR content there’s a few things you need to know about the image/video before trying to view it. The most important ones are the stereo and projection types used.

Stereo (short for stereoscopy) is the easiest. For a video/image to look 3D you need to show a slightly different version to each of your eyes. In the video/image the two versions will either be next to each other (called “side by side” or “SBS”) or one will be above the other (called “over/under”)

Getting your stereo settings wrong is very obvious, it’ll be hard to even look at the video/image because you’ll be seeing double or worse. Turning off any stereo options will let you see the image clearly and you can use the examples below to figure out what you should be using.

You might also need to switch the left and right images, your viewing app will have a toggle for this.

Example of side by side

Example of over/under

Example of non-3D

Projection is more complicated and different projections can look very similar. If an image/video looks kind of ok but is seems warped or pinched then you probably need to change the projection. The two most common projection types are equirectangular (also called panorama or barrel) and fisheye. They’re often easy to tell apart:

Example of panorama

Example of fisheye

You’ll also need to know how “wide” of an angle the image/video shows. This will usually be either 360 degrees (can see behind you) or 180 degrees (can only see forwards). In the two examples just above, the panorama shows 360 degrees but the fisheye only shows 180 degrees.