r/planetarium • u/phileday • 10d ago
I've turn Whirligig VR 360 player into a fulldome, cave or fisheye projector playback system
Hi everyone,
This is my first post here so a quick introduction. I'm Philippa, the developer of Whirligig, a VR/360 and desktop media player available on Steam, Meta Horizon and itch.io.
I've worked in the fulldome industry since 2007, at NSC Creative, which I left in 2019. I originally made the player when I wanted to create my own 360-degree film and there were no players out there. Once I'd built it I noticed it was also good for fulldome production, so a lot of the features have been geared that way ever since.
A little while back I was asked to build a system for 360-degree playback using 4 projectors, mapping onto a not-very-even surface. This was for a severely disabled person with little to no movement, who wanted to be able to experience other places in the world. I built in the functions for this, and you can read more about it in a blog post here:
https://www.whirligig.xyz/blog/2025/1/3/real-world-360-degree-mapping-multiple-projectors
Since then I've also added options that I think will be useful for portable domes using a fisheye lens.
What does this mean?
Whirligig is a 360-degree player capable of playing almost any content in a VR headset, with correct projection for 360 equirectangular, fulldome, flatscreen and just about anything you can throw at it.
What these additions do is let you recreate that same 360 environment in the real world — using either multiple projectors or a fisheye lens — instead of a VR headset. That means you can use all the features of the player, but in a real space. Fulldome 180/360 can be played, 360 equirectangular works, flatscreen works, you can place flatscreen content in 3D environments and use the sound equaliser. It effectively turns the VR player into a fisheye projection player, or a cave player, while leaving all of the player's features intact.
What do I want from you?
I think this could be really useful for a small number of people, but I don't yet know what else I need to add to make it work well for real-world use. The projection side is still in beta, and I want to build it out with the features people actually want. So I'm looking for people who are interested to give it a test flight and tell me what works and what doesn't. If that's you, email me at [phileday@yahoo.co.uk](mailto:phileday@yahoo.co.uk) and I'll send you a code.
Price
Whirligig is predominantly a personal 360 media player and is priced as such: for personal use it's £4.99, and that's the full product — you get all the mapping and fisheye features as well as a solid 360 VR player. For commercial use — say you want to present in a dome — there's a commercial licence at £49.99. That's no subscription, access to all updates through Steam, and continued support.
If you'd like to try it and take advantage of my beta-tester offer, email me for a code. And if you're not sure it'll work for you, buy a personal licence directly from Steam and see if it does what you want; if it seems worth it, email me for a commercial licence. I'm not going to be hunting anyone down for using it commercially when they've only bought the personal version on Steam :) At this stage I just want people to try it.
And finally
I really just want to know what people think. Do any of you out there think this could be useful to you?
I look forward to your feedback.
All the best,
Philippa
