See full 360 Image by Alexa Linden on Flickr

You can now take a 360-degree snapshot of a location in Second Life. Better than a simple panoramic image, the 360 snapshot covers 360 degrees in all three dimensions, allowing you to see everything both above and below your avatar as well, as though the image is projected on the inside of a sphere. Technically speaking, the snapshot is an equirectangular image projection. Better than a static image, the 360 snapshot can be clicked and dragged so you can move your ‘camera’ anywhere in the snapshot, at any angle, as if you are inside it. 

When opened, the tool quickly creates a low resolution preview taken from the location of your in-world camera. You can click and drag on the preview image in all directions to see if you like it. Re-frame your shot by moving your camera in-world and creating another snapshot. 
 

Speed and quality

Snapshot creation speed depends on your computer’s graphics capabilities. It’s not necessary to use preview quality while you are composing your snapshot, but if a higher quality level is slow on your computer, you can save it for the final snapshot. While a snapshot is being created, Second Life may appear to freeze. Just give it some more time to finish.

The quality of the snapshot is also affected by your graphics preferences (Me > Preferences > Graphics). You may have turned off features such as shadows and water reflections to make Second Life run faster, but for your 360 snapshot you may want to change some settings. The Hide Avatars checkbox is good for when you want to take a landscape shot but you don’t want to wait until no one is at that location.
 

How to use the saved snapshot

The snapshot will be saved in .jpeg format, which does not require a special viewer. All web browsers can display it, so you can add it to your social media feed or your favorite photo-sharing service. Check out these 360 snapshots from Alexa Linden -- and don’t forget to click and drag on them! 

We hope you enjoy the new 360 Snapshot feature and we can’t wait to see what you create with it!
 

Known Issues

We are aware of some issues in this first Project Viewer which we will address later:

• It is possible that some things in the world will be missing from the snapshot. Make sure everything in-world loads before you take the snapshot. Rotating your avatar will ensure everything around you loads.
• Snapshots may be corrupted on some systems with older or less powerful graphics cards, or if your graphics settings are turned down low. Try changing your graphics settings in Preferences.
• Higher quality snapshots may take a long time to create. We’ll continue to work on increasing the speed.

Download the Viewer here. UPDATE: The 360 Snapshot feature is now in the official Second Life viewer, download the latest version now!

For more technical input, please file a Jira.