Spherical panorama (virtual panorama, 3D panorama, photosphere) - one of the types of panoramic photography. Designed primarily for display on a computer (with the help of special software).

At the heart of the spherical panorama is an image assembled from a number of individual frames in a spherical (equidistant, equirectangular, sphere) or cubic projection. A characteristic feature of spherical panoramas is the maximum possible viewing angle of the space (360 × 180 degrees).

Due to the fact that the spherical projection introduces specific distortions in the image (especially in the upper and lower part), spherical panoramas are almost never shown in printed form or in the form of a conventional graphic file. The main way of demonstration is visualization based on the technologies flash, QuickTime, DevalVR, Java (obsolete) or JavaScript (the most common). The viewer creates an illusion of presence inside the sphere, on the inner surface of which the image of the surrounding space is "stretched". At the same time, optical distortions (spherical aberrations) are not visible. In addition, as a rule, spherical panoramas are endowed with viewing control tools that allow you to change the viewing direction (up-down, right-to-left), and zoom in or out. Thanks to all this, the viewer sees the place where the shooting was done, as if he were there himself.