Background

This project was a collaboration between the Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre in Lochmaddy on the Isle of North Uist & the Open Virtual Worlds research group from the University of St Andrews in Fife. Facilitated by funding from the Scottish Funding Council via the Innovation Voucher Scheme, CJ Davies, a researcher from St Andrews, spent 2 months living on the island during Summer 2015 to capture panoramas of 6x of the most prominent archaeological sites on the island. A further month of work based in St Andrews to process & curate the images produced the materials you can see on this Website today.

What is a 360° panorama?

The images produced for this project are variously called spherical panoramas, photospheres, equirectangular panoramas & 360x180° panoramas. These images capture the view in all directions around the photographer; left, right, forwards, backwards, up & down. This lets the viewer look all around them as if they were right there.

Producing these images involves taking multiple photographs pointing in all different directions, using a tripod that offsets the camera from the point of rotation so that there is no parallax introduced between the individual photogaphs. The images on this website were produced by taking photographs pointing in 6 different directions, with 3 photographs taken in each direction to capture more dynamic range. The 18 images were then combined together using specialist software to produce the 360x180° images that are displayed on this Website. More information about the equipment & process can be found in these two posts on the photographer's website.

Where can they be seen?

As well as viewing the panoramas on this Website, you can also look at them using your smartphone or tablet by installing the Round.me app & searching for 'North Uist'. The Round.me app also allows you to view the panoramas using a Google Cardboard virtual reality headset.


In Spring 2015 during Taigh Chearsabhagh's Year of Archaeology the panoramas will also form part of an exhibition at the museum. A full colour book containing a selection of the best panoramas from the project will also be released alongside the launch of the exhibition.

A Google Cardboard headset - turn your smartphone into a virtual reality headset!

All images & text © 2015 CJ Davies/Taigh Chearsabhagh Trust/Open Virtual Worlds. Please direct any enquiries here.