2.5D – Polar Panoramic Video from Valentijn Kint on Vimeo.

Speaking of Adobe’s new Pixel Bender, VKNT writes about work he’s doing with polar views, as modified in an application that processes panoramic images called Pano2VR. It’s not a real-time process, in this case (though the finished result is built in Processing), but I don’t see why you couldn’t do some filter math in something like Pixel Bender or a conventional OpenGL filter that would do the same live. Could be fun stuff. VKNT writes:

This is part of my research on movement in space and new ways to represent this. It is essentially a series of 360° panoramas following a path through a space. These spherical images are converted to an angular projection, which introduces a typical distortion. The further you get away from the center, the more distortion. The center of the image is determined by 3 parameters: pan, tilt en roll. I animated these parameters resulting in a sense of movement and deformation of the space.
More info and downloadable .mov file at:
vknt.be/2008/09/25/25d-happy-new-ears-rez-08/

Ideas, dear readers?