Unwrap Mirror Ball
This tool is intended for an image that is reflected from a mirror ball (also known as mirrored sphere). The mirror ball should have been photographed on a vertical plane, i.e. with the camera facing the ball rather than the camera positioned above it.
The tool applies a geometric transform to unwrap the image of the ball, remapping it into an equirectangular image in the Latitude/Longitude format. For the remapping to work correctly, it is important to have cropped the image to the edges of the ball before applying the tool.
Images of mirror balls are commonly used in 3D computer graphics as a quick and easy way to obtain a 360º panoramic image, i.e. an image that provides lighting information in all directions. Such images are intended for HDRI lighting, which means the Unwrap tool should be used after having generated the High Dynamic Range Image rather than applied to the individual exposures before HDRI generation.
To unwrap the image of a mirror ball:
· On the Utilities menu, click Unwrap Mirror Ball.
· Select one of the interpolation methods and click OK. The unwrapping will not be effective until you save the image file.
 
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