How to Share 360 Photos in Altspace

Jimmy Zhang
4 min readSep 17, 2021

This is the easiest way to share 360 photos in Altspace.

What You’ll Need

  • World where you have the World editor

Navigate to World Editor > Featured > SDK Apps > Skybox (on page 2).

Click Skybox to place a copy.

Copy this 360 photo URL to your clipboard:

https://cdn-content-ingress.altvr.com/uploads/skybox/three_sixty_image/1827850119676952715/IMG_1990.JPG

Click Load Image from URL.

Click on the text field and then press CTRL+V if you have a keyboard or click Paste on the virtual keyboard. Click Ok.

That’s it!

Success!

If you move around you will see more.

Move all the way around or poke your head in to admire your work.

Preload the URL

If you want to have a 360 photo preloaded, you can pass the url parameter:

wss://mres.altvr.com/skybox?url=https://cdn-content-ingress.altvr.com/uploads/skybox/three_sixty_image/1827850119676952715/IMG_1990.JPG

If the app or Event or World is reset, the app will load this photo.

Anti-Trolling / Security

By default, only users with special roles like “host” or “moderator” will be able to see and use the controls (e.g. load a new photo). If you want to allow anyone to do so, you can pass the moderator parameter:

wss://mres.altvr.com/skybox?moderator=false

Scales

By default, users will see a sphere the size of a beach ball. If you want something bigger, you can pass the scale parameter:

wss://mres.altvr.com/skybox?scale=medium

There are three scales: small (default), medium, and large. Medium scale can fit a small group inside. However, to get the best experience, you’ll want to stay near the center to minimize distortions. I recommend using a Teleport Button so that people can teleport directly to the center of the sphere.

Large scale is so big it covers the sky. (Tip: use a Template with a transparent ground plane like Cool Sky). You can also set scale to a number like 4 or 100. For all the latest options and examples for using them, visit the app’s website, linked below.

Uploading a 360 Photo to Altspace

You can upload 360 photos directly to Altspace here:

https://account.altvr.com/skyboxes/new

Give it a name, specify a file, and click Create. Click “Copy to Clipboard” to get the URL to use in the Skybox App.

FAQ

  • Did you make this app? This app was made and is maintained by community member nick (ningtaku). Altspace is featuring and hosting it. You can find details about it here: https://github.com/NicholasLiang/skybox-mre
  • Is this app open source? Yes, the repo is here:
    https://github.com/NicholasLiang/skybox-mre
  • Do you own the rights to this tropical 360 photo? Yes, I took this photo with a Ricoh Theta S (a few years old) so feel free to test with it.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Comfyhoodie for being my model.

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