SNEAK PEEK: Incredible pictures and video from Dubai360.com

Written by:
Matt Fortune
12th January 2015

What’s On has the best pictures of Dubai from the soon-to-launch Dubai360.com, a Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, project.

More…
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– Dubai in 2017
– We love UAE

Stunning images of Dubai aren’t particularly hard to come by, as we showed you last year with our incredible ‘Dubai From The Sky‘ series.

But a new website will launch next week showcasing full 360 degrees virtual tours of the emirate. Originally announced in August 2014 by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, on his social media (Twitter and Instagram) channels, Dubai360.com uses state-of-the-art multimedia to portray our home from all sorts of unlikely angles.

Ahead of the official launch on Monday January 19, a series of sample videos have been launched on YouTube (just below), while the snapshot used in the initial announcement – which gave visitors the chance to experience 24 hours atop the control tower at Dubai International Airport – has clocked up nearly 350,000 views.

According to The National, four synchronised full-frame Canon 1Dx equipped with ultra-wide angle lenses shot 88,000 photographs which were then stitched using panoramic video-rendering software to create the video. It can be seen at the bottom of this page.

The latest videos double as something of a ‘how to’ guide for the service. Starting above the Dubai World Islands project, ‘Sample Tour number two’ shows off the service’s ability to take you inside some of the locations only usually seen from outside, such as the iconic ‘Bridge Suite’ at Atlantis The Palm, and ‘Royal Two at Burj Al Arab.

The incredible zoom capabilities are far beyond anything ever seen before and makes for easy navigation around the city, from sea level, to some of the highest points, and even to the doorway of a Skydive Dubai plane during a parachute jump. You can take a time-lapse ride on the Dubai Metro.

Small icons indicate how and from where each photo was taken, and some positions incorporate time-lapse videos. One of the coolest elements is the ‘Little Planet’ function, as shown in the Dubai Airport preview, which creates a remarkable spherical shot that captures the space all around the camera.

We’ve selected some of the highlights from the videos below, and will bring you more once the site goes public.

Dubai360.com creates an interactive platform from which to tour the emirate