Mirye Software, the publisher of 3d modeling, rendering and animation suite Shade for Windows and Mac OS X Lion, and developer E Frontier announce the EF HDR 360 product line of spherical map high dynamic range images designed for use by 3D design and 3D digital animation.

The first release include the Cherry Blossom series, with 15 beautiful spherical photo image maps taken professionally in Japan, and the Green Fields natural green open spaces series. Each image includes formats at 10,000 x 5,000 pixels in OpenEXR and JPG formats, a half size version as well as a QuicktimeVR based demonstration.

High dynamic range imaging allows a greater range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard photographic methods. This wide dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight.  OpenEXR is a high dynamic-range (HDR) image file format developed by Industrial Light & Magic for use in computer imaging applications. OpenEXR is used by ILM on all motion pictures currently in production. The first movies to employ OpenEXR were Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, Men in Black II, and Signs. Since then, OpenEXR has become ILM's main image file format.

Most professional 3D modeling, rendering and animation suites, including Shade 3D, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3D Studio MAX, Lightwave and Cinema4D, Smith Micro Poser can use OpenEXR spherical images for image based lighting or as complete, realistic 360 degree backgrounds for rendering stills and animation.

New releases of EF HDR 360 series, as well as new images in existing series will be released on a regular basis.

Each image of the Cherry Blossom series can be licensed individually for as low as $6.85, or in groups of 5 for $30.75 or as bundle of all 15 images for $81.75. The series is immediately available through the Mirye Software online store.

You can change the viewing angle by click-drag within the frame. DEMO requires Flash 9+