I can create a collection of pictures giving a 360-degree view from a certain spot, just taking a bunch of photographs from the same spot but in a different direction. However, what software could I use (on Windows) to stitch these images together to get one big image?
I prefer something that would stitch them together without showing any seams.
As mentioned before, Hugin is a great free tool for photo stitching. You line the photos up as best you can and Hugin will automatically adjust the photo (pinching or expanding) in order to make seamless transitions.
I used it for this combination of about 8 shots taken left to right covering about a 315° FOV. Actual image is 14959 x 1306.
Autopano Pro gives great results, from what i tried.
It's great for this use, to create panorama from a set of pictures. It finds itself the common points, and adjusts photos to make one big picture (or eventually even a 360).
I've tried various different programs to assemble panoramas and I'm extremely impressed by the results from the "Photomerge" tool in Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.
It only outputs flat images, so if you want "VR" style Quicktime you'll need something else, but it's very simple to use, and requires very little (or no) tweaking to produce excellent seamless results.
I think the same functionality is in CS3 and later, but note that the tool in CS2 and Photoshop Elements 5 is definitely inferior.
And here's a sample of the results, as a shameless plug of my panoramas on Flickr:
Personally, when making panorama photos (something I love to do as well), I normally use Adobe Photoshop CS3's Photostitch ability, which is damned near perfect.
When I'm looking to make an actual 360 degree photo, like the ones that run from quicktime, I use PTGui. It's got a little of a learning curve, but works quite well. I made this pano "video" (3.1 MB .mov file) from our rooftop after getting my new tripod (I really am a photo dork!)
I would imagine that you could just just a simple animated GIF creator to stitch the images together into a single animated gif. You may run into problems with the size, however, for pictures that have sizable resolutions.
Edit I misread. Thought you were looking for animation, not just one big picture.
