The Panoramic Camera renders Spherical environment maps, Stereo cube maps, and other types of unconventional images used for virtual reality applications and stereo vision goggles or head-mounted displays in immersive experiences. Panoramic cameras use Blender's Lens and Camera settings in addition to OctaneRender's Camera attributes that are active for this Camera type to render images with horizontally elongated fields-of-view. It differs from a Thin Lens camera because it adjusts the Field Of ViewThe area that is visible to a camera lens usually measured in millimeters. A wide angle lens provides a larger field of view and a telephoto lens provides a narrow field of view. attributes and the selection of Panoramic Modes for wide format renders (Figure 2).
Figure 1: Panoramic camera's Lens and Camera settings
Figure 2: Panoramic camera Field Of View attributes and Panoramic modes
Lens Shift (X, Y) - Renders images of tall buildings or structures from a similar height as the human eye, but keeps the vertical lines parallel.
Clipping Start - The distance from the Camera to the near clipping plane, measured in meters. This parameter helps you get good shots of entire rooms for interior scenes but cannot do so without a very large field-of-view and keep the camera inside the room. You can position the camera outside the room - lower the FOVThe area that is visible to a camera lens usually measured in millimeters. A wide angle lens provides a larger field of view and a telephoto lens provides a narrow field of view. and increase the clipping plane distance in front of you until the closest walls are clipped out. OctaneRender® doesn't alter the geometry, but it alters the Camera's clipping, which means that shadows, reflections, and refractions are still affected by the clipped geometry.
Clipping End - The distance from the Camera to the far clipping plane, measured in meters. This clips off Objects in the background starting at this specified distance.
Sensor Width - The size of the sensor or film in millimeters.
Adapt to Camera View Resolution - Uses the camera resolution for previews.
Used as Universal Camera - The option provides additional parameters associated with the Octane Universal Camera. See the Universal Camera article for more information.
Pan Mode - Specifies the panoramic projection to be used. There are three options: Spherical, Cylindrical, and Cube Map.
FOV X - The horizontal filed of view in degrees. This sets the X coordinate for the horizontal field of view. This value is ignored when cube mapping is used.
FOV Y - The vertical filed of view in degrees. This sets the Y coordinate for the horizontal field of view. This value is ignored when cube mapping is used.
Keep Upright - If enabled, the panoramic camera is always oriented towards the horizon and the up-vector will stay in its default direction of 0,1,0.
Use F-Stop - Adjusts the aperture-to-focal-length ratio to control the field-of-view and depth-of-field like a camera.
Autofocus - Keeps focus on the closest visible surface at the center of the image, regardless of the ApertureDetermines how much light enters a camera lens. A large aperture produces a narrow depth of field and a small aperture produces a wide depth of field., Aperture Edge, and Focal Depth values. If Autofocus is disabled, you need to define the depth-of-field focus point relative to an Object in the scene, and you need to define the Camera's distance from the focus point.
Distance - If Autofocus is disabled, this specifies the Camera's distance to the focus point. Make sure the Distance attribute encompasses the scene (or the Object in focus), because like the real world, you cannot see any Objects if Distance is 0, and some Objects won't be visible if the Distance is too short.
Aperture - Represents the radius of the Camera's lens opening, measured in centimeters. Low values have a wide depth-of-field where everything is in focus.High values create a shallow depth-of-field where objects in the foreground and background are out of focus.
Aperture Aspect Ratio - Squashes or stretches the depth-of-field disc.
Aperture Edge - Controls aperture edge detection at all points within the aperture, and modifies the bokeh effect. Lower values give more pronounced edges to out-of-focus Objects affected by the shallow depth-of-field, like Objects in the foreground and background. High values increase the contrast towards the edge.
Bokeh Side Count - The number of edges making up the bokeh shape.
Bokeh Rotation - The bokeh shape's orientation.
Bokeh Roundedness - The roundedness of the bokeh shape's sides.
Stereo Mode - Disabled when using a Panoramic camera.
Stereo Output - This specifies the output rendered in stereo mode.
Stereo Distance - The distance between the left and right eye in stereo mode, measured in meters. This is also refers to the inter pupillary distance (IPD), stereo interocular distance, or stereo distance. When working with scenes for virtual reality, the IPD scale unit used by OctaneRender® is not affected by the scene scale unit. This is intentional, as when the IPD is set, this must remain consistent even when scenes change in scale or proximity. However, the units used by the IPD in OctaneRender® are also interpreted in meters, so when checking the Camera attribute, Eye Distance is effectively 0.02, which is its default value equal to 2 cm or 20 mm. For a distance of 65 mm, set the Camera node's Stereo Distance value to 0.065. For realistic depth, use values between 0.055 and 0.075.
Swap Eyes - Swaps the left and right eye positions when stereo mode shows both.
Stereo Distance Falloff - Controls how fast the eye distance reduces towards the poles. This reduces eye strain at the poles when the panorama is viewed through a head-mounted display. A value of 1 reduces the eye distance from equator to the poles, which creates a relaxed viewing experience, but this also causes flat surfaces to appear curved. Values smaller than 1 keeps the eye distance constant for a larger latitude range above and below the horizon, but reduces the eye distance near the poles. This keeps flat surface flat, but cause more eye strain near the poles. You can reduce the eye distance more by setting the Pano Blackout Latitude to less than 90 degrees.
Pano Blackout Latitude - Used by the Panoramic camera. This is the minimum latitude that blacks out areas with higher latitude values the panorama when Stereo Rendering is enabled.
Left Stereo Filter/Right Stereo Filter - The left and right filter colors adjust the colors that create the anaglyphic stereo affect in the render.