copeg wrote:I remember a few times stitching together a 360 degree pano in quicktime, talk about a pano!
Quicktime VR, eh? That is so vintage by now

. I recall having to go to Ann Arbor on a 3 day tech retreat to listen to Apple evangelists some time around 1995 to learn about this new wonder technology. Developer kit was $1300, tripod adapters and fancy flat field super wide lenses even more expensive. Digital cameras were not even remotely suitabe.
The tripod adapters were pretty mandatory to make sure the image stitching came out ok. Now you don't even think about it, nor do you need to hold the camera perfectly level. The MS ICE is more or less idiot proof, and if you liked the old VR panoramas, well, it can do something very similar to it. Requires Silverlight plugin, but it's well worth it:
Bighorn Plateau in Deep Zoom format
not bad for free software, and a $100 camera, shot handheld in the rain while in a hurry to get off the exposed area. doing 360 degrees should not be a big problem. I'll try a few of those on my next hike, but with a better camera this time.