Orbit

A sphere of pictures, turning

Twenty-four slots spread over a sphere by the golden angle, so they never line up into rows. The sphere turns on a tilted axis; every picture stays square to the camera and takes its size from its distance, so the near ones come forward and the far ones recede and darken. Bring the camera close and the sphere overflows the frame: its edges then run into the spectral lens, where the image is magnified, split across the wavelengths and smeared into long coloured trails, with a liquid-glass relief on the bend. Drag to roll the sphere in any direction; it keeps the momentum. Drop your own pictures into the Images property. Left empty, the component draws gradients so you see it working straight away. Slots, radius, camera distance, image size, field of view, spin, axis tilt and depth shading are all controls, with the five lens ones. Standalone file: engine and shaders inside, nothing fetched from outside.

A sphere of pictures, turning