Daich.studio

Panorama Retreats

For Apple Vision Pro · visionOS 27

Preview a panorama of our imaginary city on a curved panel around you, then save it to Photos to turn it into a Personal Environment with visionOS.

Panorama Retreats lets you choose one of our concept-art cityscapes and turn it into a 3D environment for Apple Vision Pro. visionOS 27 can convert panoramic images into spatial 3D environments. We created, upscaled, and carefully prepared our concept-art scenes so they can be converted using this feature.

The app previews each panorama around you before you commit to it, lets you personalize a part of the scene if you like, and then saves the finished image to your Photos library. From there, visionOS does the spatial conversion. A built-in How It Works page in the app walks you through the rest.

What you can do

Every scene is original concept art, extended into a wide panorama and prepared for visionOS. Preview it on a curved panel around you before you decide.

All scenes have a sign or canvas you can fill with a photo from your library, or with a calendar for the month you pick, so the environment becomes yours.

Once visionOS has converted the saved panorama, it becomes a Personal Environment that works with other visionOS apps, the same way the built-in environments do. Open Mac Virtual Display, Safari, or the apps you already use and work inside the concept world. The scene wraps a wide panoramic view around you.

Requires Apple Vision Pro running visionOS 27 or later. Saving a scene asks for permission to add images to your Photos library. The app collects no data — see the Privacy Policy.

Behind the Scenes — How These Environments Were Made

Artist: Daichi

As you may know, Apple Vision Pro can be a great tool for productivity. One of my favorite features is the ability to instantly replace my surroundings with an immersive environment. Whether I’m in my room, sitting on a flight, or working from a hotel room with a small desk, I can open Mac Virtual Display and work on a gigantic virtual screen surrounded by mountains or a beach. I often find myself much more focused this way.

But there was one thing I kept wishing for: more environments. Even better, I wanted to design the places I could virtually work inside. When I learned that visionOS 27 could convert panoramic photos into spatial 3D environments, I decided to experiment with turning my own concept-art cityscapes into environments for Apple Vision Pro.

It wasn’t quite as straightforward as I initially expected. I started with my existing concept art and gradually rebuilt and adapted it for panoramic viewing. Below is a simplified example of the workflow. You may also find some of these techniques useful if you’d like to experiment with turning your own artwork into an environment.

1. Original concept art

I begin with my own concept art, usually painted in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Fresco. The original artwork is relatively rough and is typically around 2K resolution. It isn’t panoramic, and the resolution isn’t high enough for the final Apple Vision Pro environment.

2. Upscaling and adding detail

Next, I create a much higher-resolution version. I use Photoshop together with generative AI tools to upscale the artwork, reconstruct details, improve textures, and refine areas of the original painting. The original concept art remains the foundation and visual direction for the scene.

3. Building the panorama

Next, I extend and reconstruct the artwork into a panoramic image while continuing to add detail. I use a combination of Photoshop, generative AI, and manual editing for this process. An important part of this step is creating the characteristic distortion of a panoramic image. Much of this is done manually by studying the way real panoramic photographs distort perspective and then recreating those characteristics in the artwork.

4. Final composition and finishing

For this particular example, I changed my mind about the composition. The original artwork placed the viewer directly on the railroad, which worked as an interesting composition for the concept art but felt less comfortable as an immersive environment. I repositioned the viewpoint using Photoshop’s distortion, transformation, and rotation tools.

I then refined the panorama, corrected visual issues, and prepared it for use as an environment. The finished image is approximately 12,000 × 4,000 pixels. From a relatively small concept painting, the result is a large panoramic world that visionOS can transform into a spatial environment you can actually step inside.