IPIX's 360-degree photos grew out of robots built for dangerous places. A photo on a website was a flat rectangle. IPIX offered a spherical image you could drag to look in every direction, as if you stood in the room. The idea came from robotics work near Oak Ridge National Laboratory. When IPIX filed to go public in the summer of 1999, real estate and travel sites wanted a better way to show places.

Hazard Robots to Home Tours

The company began as TeleRobotics International, founded by H. Lee Martin to build camera systems for remote work in hazardous places. Its fisheye imaging could turn two wide photos into a full sphere. IPIX bet that this immersive view would become a standard way to show homes, hotels and products online. It planned to earn a fee each time someone used an image.

bamboo.com, Then Bankruptcy

IPIX priced at $18 a share in August 1999 and soon merged with bamboo.com, a rival in virtual tours for real estate. The combined company did well on listings during the boom. Losses mounted as the market fell and prices for virtual tours dropped. After years of restructuring and new products, IPIX went bankrupt in 2006. Its name lived on in later licensing.

Cover: Rotunda and New Rooms - Dublin, James Malton. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a round rotunda room (a view in every direction).