4πSR is a website created to publish QTVR panoramas on the web.

Why the name 4πSr ("four-pi-sr")?

4π Sr (4π steradians) is the mathematical expression that exactly describes the solid angle of a full sphere. And that is what spherical panoramas are all about. To show an image that covers a full sphere around the location of the camera. Only my very first few panoramas were not spherical.

About the photographer

I was born in 1952 in Fårösund on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. I have been interested in photography since I was about 10 years old. I bought my first camera, a Kodak Brownie Starlet, together with my brother. We were both interested in darkroom work and processed all film ourselves. A couple of years later I bought a Voigtländer Vitoret which was a rather simple 35 mm viewfinder camera. The next camera was an SLR, a Praktica Nova I B with standard, wide angle and 200 mm telephoto lenses. That was later traded for a Minolta SRT 101 which I sold and bought a Minolta XD11. I was a rather active photographer until I got married in 1983. After the first child there was no more room for photographic darkroom work and my interest in photography had to take some rest.

Not until 2004 I got myself my first digital camera. A compact that could easily fit in a pocket. As late as the fall of 2004 I started to become interested in panoramas when I saw when one of my colleagues stitched together three photos to an impressive panorama. I asked how he did it and was told it was the software that came with his camera that did it. I started to search the Internet for suitable software for photo stitching and found various software that could stitch photos. Once I found some trial versions of panorama software I started to experiment just to discover that my camera was totally useless for panorama photography. With a more suitable camera that I bought in December of 2005 and with the skills developed experimenting with my old camera I was able to do my first decent panorama in January of 2006. This was the first time I had produced something meaningful photographically. After testing it on my family members and colleagues I decided to submit two of my panoramas to the website of Aftonbladet, one of Sweden's major evening newspapers that feature QTVR panoramas in their travel section.

I really enjoy this new modern photographic media. It makes it possible to get everything in on one picture and not just capture a small portion of the scene from a carefully selected angle.

I hope you will enjoy QTVR panoramas as much as I do.

Lennart Möllerström