VR Photo Viewer

This is the only app I could find to view my cardboard camera 360 files properly with sound. The app is hopelessly outdated and not updated to use the quest 2 controllers - but you can cludge your way through it. I'm just glad to have it.

Is this software still being developed/maintained?
It has stopped working for me, but then, I see its now not free anymore, so I don't know if the software broke, or if I just have to purchase it now. Given that there are other 360 photo viewers out there, some free, and some for as little as $3.99, $14.99 seems kind of steep, especially since it says it was last updated in 2017. I don't want to pay THAT much for software that is no longer supported, and will stop working (may have already) any day now.

Short answer: VR Photo Viewer + Quest + Link Cable + Google Cardboard Camera pictures = works (sort of).

Why you'd want to view Google Cardboard Camera files: Cameras like the Lenovo Mirage are no longer supported but can still be used to create 3D images and video that makes it feel like you're in a giant, dome theater.

What works best for Quest: You're better off using Pigasus VR Media Player from the Oculus store and converted pictures. You can convert Google Cardboard Camera, still pictures, taken in VR180 (3D + 180°) by doing a web search for: abosaszakal cardboard camera converter It's usually the second search result. The converter only works on Chrome based browsers but you can upload your image, the website will seem to stop working for a while, then it will let you download the image. In Pigasus go into your settings, under "Advanced". Click the "2D" button under "Media Default Viewing Mode" and choose "3D-360: OU" (which means over under). Pigasus is cheaper, officially supported on Quest, runs natively without needing a Link Cable and can load files from your local area network if the network is connected to wi-fi.

Long Answer: If you're using a Quest headset with a Link / USB-C Cable (which is not officially supported by VR Photo Viewer) and Google Cardboard Camera picture files that you don't want to convert you will be able to view them.

What works

• You can move through your computer's drives and directories using the hand controller
  
• You can load files from your computer
  
• It displays Google Cardboard pictures without having to convert them
  
• It displays Google Cardboard VR180 pictures in 3D
  
• You can turn your head and look around at the image
  
• You can go back to the file loading menu
  

• The demo wasn't able to load any images, making it completely useless
  
• Going to the next or previous image with the hand controller (you have to return to the file menu each time and select a file)
  
• There's no option to load files directly from a drive or computer on your local area network (although, the app never said it could)
  

[*] Google Photos

12.50€ is maybe a little much, for that the software is mildly disappointing.

Google Photos support currently is broken, too, this however at least for me is not a dealbreaker as you can filter all VR photos by searching for "VR" and downloading all at once.

The photo browser is a little clunky, I can see what it tries to do, but navigation is very weird.

Other than that, it does what I expect it to do, open 3D panorama photos from Google Camera, and as there is no other tool that can do it I can tolerate the price.

I think some people also don't really understand what the purpose of this app is, it does not display any panorama image in 3D, just the dedicated file formats as described. I for example have a bunch of old and new Panoramas shot on either Google Camera or Cardboard Camera and they show in 3D just as expected.

Does not work with panoramic pictures or Google Albums.
Even though I gave it permissions, the program is just stuck trying to load Google Albums.
Anything other than a normal sized camera picture will not load.
I'll be getting a refund, sadly. I really wanted this to work.

Bought this app cause it said I can view my Google Photos but after I gave it authorization to access my photos on google it just sits there with a spinnning wheel and does nothing.

Image navigation is terrible, took me 10 min just to get to the files I wanted. Doesn't interface with keyboard. Can't recenter where the screen is. Can't zoom in/out. Not what I expected from a $15 dedicated image viewer.

It used to load photos from Google Photos but now it just hangs and never works. I have done the browser sign in process so it's not that it's waiting for the browser. It's a shame, I used to like it but it became useless. It doesn't even load any sample photos.

Good Software does what it should do!
Although i wish for an option to change the distance/scale of the picture because mine is just TOO big!
Also when switching through the pictures it takes a little while.

This software is a big let down and so is the devleloper. I see old posts with the same issue as me almost a year ago and yet the issue persists. I load 360 photos and they are displayed as 2D photos. To get them to display propery, I have to manually click a button for every photo and there is no option to click apply to all and the software remember. Why would anyone want a VR headset to view 2D photos? It makes no sense. I am getting a refund.

Unfortunately can't currently recommend this , it shows prommise but for this sort of price it needs more features such as ability to zom in and out of photos, easily and fluidly scroll between photos using the handsets slideshow options also it currently keeps randomly switching to 3D top bottom mode for some photos even when I've selected 2D flat in the settings menu.

Interesting Vr Viewer, however it is missing the famous Stereo Cube Map mode, making your 360 panorama pictures really VR looking.
when will this be added ????

This is a pretty rudimentary app but it mostly works. I have a few problems:
1. Most of the time, when I open local files, it thinks they are 3D and I have to manually set each file to "none" and even then it does not remember the next time.
2. some of my panos are created with Ptgui and VR photo viewer does not recognize them and 360 equirectangular panos. Instead it displays them as cylindrical, ie. as if projected on a slightly curved screen. At first I thought it might require a 2:1 width:height ratio to recognize them as 360, but this did not work. Is there some EXIF metadata required to get it to recognize a file as 360?

VR Photo Viewer is pretty well designed and especially good at displaying 2D photos on a large screen display. However, I've attempted to view my 3D MPO files and the positioning of the viewer is WAY too close! You go crosseyed. Note that these same MPOs look great on a stereoviewer. In order for the 3D viewing function to work with MPO files, the developers need to provide a way to position the viewer at multiple distances away from the virtual screen.

As it stands, I can only recommend this app for 2D viewing. I'm looking forward to future updates, since this has the potential to be a killer 3D viewing app!

I've just purchased it, but so far I'm happy. If you're heavily invested in Google's photo ecosystem and have Photospheres you'd like to view in your VR Headset this makes it really easy. Link your google account and boom! everything shows up with an easy to navigate UI.

Hi all,

I`m working for Architectural design and visualization stuff. I prepared i lot of stuff (from 3ds max) for google cardboard and Htc Vive, Stereoscopic shots working so great sofware totally work, smooth and pure. I hope in future we will able to use for cubic renders too ! (cubic renders much much more accurite rather than stereoscopic renders in my oppinion)

And also very nice opportunity for creating own google 360° photo archive, im gonna try..

Cheers

Displays normal photos but if I try to load my 360X180 shots, it goes black. And since I bought this software to view the orbs I´m editing, I find it very expensive and useless...

Update:
Got a quick response from the developer that identified the problem and got it to work... It looks amazing and helps alot when I´m editing and going over my 360x180 orbs... Thanks again... =)

This worked great to view my own 360 panos. The same equirectangular photos with metadata that Facebook requires for 360 tours can be used. I haven't created them in 3D for this yet. I just wanted to view what I had already made.

Here is how it worked for me (not 3D unfortunately):
1. Opened this app and connected my Google Photos account following the easy instructions (you take the VR goggles off and complete the connection on desktop)
2. I put Vive back on and selected Google photos in VR Photo Viewer. It didn't find any 360 tours because i didn't have any in my account yet and it loaded some examples (nice interface of 3D spheres for thumbs).
3, Took off Vive and went to Google Photos web page on desktop. Dragged and dropped / uploaded an equirectangular photo that i knew had the correct metadata because i used it on Facebook successfully already.
4. Restarted VR Photo Viewer in Vive
5. There it was, my 360 tour thumb viewable in this player. :)

I'm assuming it scanned my Google Photos and found the metadata becasue I have other jpgs in Google Photos which it ignored. Perfect. For now on, anything I want to view in this player that I create, I simply drag the photo to the Google photos web page and it will be in VR Photo Viewer.

So a tip for anyone viewing their own 360s in here may be to look up info to make a Facebook 360 photo. Once you have that jpg with metadata (read up on what that means), I think you will have a working photo for here. You can create these with phone apps and other ways. Google Facebook 360 Photos to learn how.

Next step for me is to figure out how to make 360s in 3D without the Cardboard app. I'm hoping for super high quality with my Nikon and 10.5mm Fisheye. I have made 3D photos with one camera. Not sure how to make 3D 360s yet (1 jpg of 2 sphericals side by side maybe?).

Dear SpocketVR!
I made a panorama photo of my room and add it to my google photo album. I let it open and then start the VR Photo Viewer, and hit the google foto sphere. I only see your photo's in the sphere and not the one i added to google photo.
How does it automaticly connect with my google account/photo's?
Greets Mike

Very easy to use, I think this has a lot of potential. Fairly limited at the moment, but with more features I can see this being quite a useful photo viewer.