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By using the latest advances in digital imaging, we have created
a new way to display your business, your home, anywhere you
want to step inside 360-degree immersive images - photo bubbles
- for the Internet. We also create 360-degree spinning images;
virtual tours; multimedia promotional CD's; and traditional flat
digital imaging.

Startup does a 360
New Brookline firm puts everything into the picture including
items such as lenses and camera bags that arent supposed to be there.

By DAVID BROOKS, Telegraph Staff

BROOKLINE Here's a problem most photographers don't have: Where
do you put the camera bag?

"You cant just put it down behind you. There isn't any behind
you," jokes Alex McLeod, cofounder of Full Circle Imaging.

This brand-new company incorporated in May, run out of the
Brookline homes of McLeod and Bill Atkinson, and funded by a New
Hampshire "angel" investor to the first-year tune of about
$125,000 hopes to ride to success on one the newest Web
technologies, the "virtual tour."

The pair takes back-to-back pictures with a fish-eye lens, then
uses software from a company called Ipix to blend them together
into a "picture bubble" that can be posted on Web sites and
manipulated by Web surfers.

As the name implies, the bubble lets surfers look at everything
you would see if your head is where the camera was. Using a
standard browser extra "plug-in" software is necessary for
high-resolution viewing you can make the picture scroll to the
left or right, straight up or almost straight down (the view
directly underfoot is blocked by the tripod), or spin it around
and around until you feel ill.

That's where the camera bag problem comes in: Everything nearby is
part of the picture.

"I put my camera lens down on the table once. That was a mistake,"
says McLeod.

"You learn to put things under the tripod before you take any
pictures," says Atkinson.

Virtual tours have been around for a few years using a variety of
formats, notably Apple Inc. Quick Time VR. They are becoming
more common on real estate Web sites as a way for surfers to get a
good look inside a property, and are starting to show up on
tourism and vacation-related sites to lure visitors.

Full-Circles business plan which the founders say they have
changed four times since inception calls for developing a huge
portfolio of bubbles that can be used for a variety of
applications, from Web sites to corporate CD-ROM.

They're not alone in this idea, so like many new businesses, they
work hard to develop visibility. For example, they provide free
photo bubbles to NH.com, a statewide Web site owned by the company
that owns The Telegraph, and recently shot a "tour" of The
Telegraphs main building in Hudson that will be displayed on the
papers Web site.

They've also had to overcome the kinds of problems associated with
a new technology, including training Web masters to handle the
files and convincing customers that "flat" photos are passé.

Even starting in the spring is a problem for one major customer:
White Mountain resorts.

"They want to see snow. Its hard to sell tourism pictures when
all you're got is dead leaves and dry grass," said McLeod.

Atkinson is a Nashua firefighter and a mechanical engineer who
worked for years at Bronzecraft, a company founded by his
grandfather, Arthur Atkinson.

"IM a third-generation foundryman," he says.

He has long been an amateur photographer, so when he heard of
360-by-360 pictures last winter, his interest was piqued.

He met McLeod, a software engineer with long experience in imaging
technology, in a modern-father-networking sort of way: Their
children go to the same pre-school.

"We started talking, and Alex sounded interested, and that's how
it got started," said Atkinson.

They use standard digital cameras and software from Oak Ridge,
Tenn.-based Ipix, which says it developed the product for NASA and
the U.S. Department of Energy to provide remote viewing of
hazardous environments.

The company has patented a way to meld together two fish-eye
photos, instead of the several photos required with conventional
lenses used by other companies. The patent, like many software
patents, is being challenged in court by competitors who say it is
a trivial change from existing technology, but for the time being,
it is solid.

The Ipix method improves the overhead view other panoramic
pictures don't look up very much and reduced the number of
photos involved. That makes combining the flat photos into the
"bubble" much easier.

"Post-production work is the hard part," says Atkinson.

Not the only hard part, though.

"Everything you know about photography, you've got to forget," he
says.

For example, even a point-and-shoot amateur knows to keep the sun
at their back while snapping a picture. That's not possible with a
picture bubble, though.

Then there's the problem of fast-moving clouds.

The two halves of the picture bubble known officially as a
"two-image hemispherical" picture are taken by the same camera,
pointing first one way and then the other. (The lens covers 185
degrees, providing a slight overlap between the two halves that
helps meld them together without a visible seam.)

It takes the companys Nikon 950 digital camera, used by Atkinson
during a demonstration, about 4 seconds to process each picture.
Add another second or two to spin it around and you've got enough
of a time delay between the two halves to cause potential
problems.
"If a cloud is going overhead, it will have moved between the
pictures," said McLeod.

Hence the post-production work.

"Pictures of something that cant be repeated, like a parade, are
a challenge," said Atkinson. "By the time you're taking (the
second half), everything's changed."

Taking pictures in a boat is also tough, because the platform
moves, and using flash is very difficult: the equipment has to be
moved from one side of the shot to the other, with nothing
changing in the interim.

Despite that, the two say they are constantly finding new places
to take bubble pictures.

"I went to Story Land with the family, and took some shots on the
rides," said Atkinson. He and McLeod have gotten pictures of other
New Hampshire items such as a moose and village greens, not to
mention construction sites and the interior of buildings.

Now they hope they can turn them into another New Hampshire item:
The successful start-up.