Once upon a time – OMG am I telling a story or what?.., there was a time when flash animations dominated web design, but today flash has almost lost the hold and jQuery have come into dominance. Every imaginable design feature, visual element and product display can be attained through jQuery or Javascript. Displaying a 360 degree view of a real product was once possible only through flash movies, which results in more loading time, testing the patience of the user. But now this same visual representation of products can be done with jQuery plugins which is sleek, loads faster and seo friendly.
We have tested some jQuery plugins for you, and here we list the best that does the job. (Display 360 degree view of a product). Though there are lots of flash versions to do this job, let me tell you don’t have to use it.
1. JQuery Reel plugin
The most advanced plugin for creating 360° product displays, but this plugin provides amazing features like multi-row 360° and panorama creation. You can create 360° with individual images or with a sprite (all images stitched together into one). This plugin also provides an excellent feature called Annotations. Now you can create annotations of individual features within the 360° or panorama with text or image. Plugin provides lot of options for precise control and smoother 3d display. It also supports custom CSS and events to play, pause and stop the 360° view.
2. Dopeless Rotate
Dopeless rotate is another excellent plugin to create 360° displays, this plugin also provides zoom functionality. You must have 2 set of images for 360° and Zoom. This plugin depends on a php script to read the images to create the 360°, which is provided along with the plugin. Supports custom CSS for design manipulation.
3. j360
Simple plugin without much options, but enough to create a 360° display. Supports touch screen tap view for hand held devices. Creates 360° from series of images like the above plugins.
4. Spritespin
This is almost like a simplified version of jQuery reel, has lot of options and compatible with many browsers. provides support for many mobile devices. 360° can be created with series of images or sprite sheet.
All the above plugins listed were free and can be easily integrated into any type of web based applications. Though there are few other free plugins, we haven’t listed it because they require to buy license for commercial use.