Strange worlds are being created using a modified camera and a lot of patience.

Brighton-based Utopia produces 360-degree static pictures and is hoping to add action to the digital images.

Managing director Chris Watts said: "We can take a digital photograph showing everything visible on a turning point of 360 degrees - up, down, left and right. The only tiny gap is the space directly under where the camera is placed.

"The effect is one of stepping into a 3-D world. The images are designed to be viewed on a computer screen and appear as flat squares which can be navigated with a mouse.

"A selected area is shown as a straight-on view, as if someone was stood looking directly at that spot.

"The rest of the picture is distorted around the edges. It's like looking around from the central point inside a ball."

The pictures are made using a digital camera with a fish-eye lens.

Mr Watts said: "The lens is huge, it looks like half a tennis ball stuck on the camera. In nature, a fish's eye can see 180 degrees or more round the fish and this is the effect achieved with the special lens.

"In one shot we create half of the panoramic image. Then we turn the camera round and take another picture in the opposite direction to get the view behind.

"The two pictures are joined together at the seams to make one 360- degree view.

"It's a slow process, each double picture takes up to four hours to sew together to give the full panoramic effect."

The mathematics and the technology behind the 360-degree technique were devised by iPIX, an American firm, and Utopia has been the main iPIX distributor for the UK for three years.

The American developers have been adapting the technique to make movie-style footage built up from 360-degree images.

The final footage can be watched in the same way as the static images, by using a computer.