this was way easier than i thought: i just grap the preview every few seconds while the camera is shooting the video.
i assumed there would be all kinds of setup necessary. nothing; it just worked.
erel's camex2 class (for the camera2 api) has a method:
Dim bitmap As Bitmap = cam.GetPreviewBitmap(640,480)
i add a timer fire every 5 seconds. when the timer tick event triggers, i grab the bitmap and save it. it worked.
so, while technically it's possible to have your device shoot a video while rotating 360, it's still tricky to create a 360 degree image.
pasting a series of jpg's side by side is easy; the problem is calculating the exact angle of view and the timing needed to create 360
degrees without any gaps. timing is never exact, so you are bound to miss something. furthermore, a moving camera is going to create
blur. maybe not on every frame, but how is that going to look? a nice panorama with a big blur in the middle. what does that say?