  Virtual Reality applications are becoming increasingly mature. The
requirements and complexity of such systems is steadily increasing. Realistic
and detailed environments are often omitted in order to concentrate on the
interaction possibilities within the application. Creating an accurate and
realistic virtual environment is not a task for laypeople, but for experts in
3D design and modeling. To save costs and avoid hiring experts, panorama images
are often used to create realistic looking virtual environments. These images
can be captured and provided by non-experts. Panorama images are an alternative
to handcrafted 3D models in many cases because they offer immersion and a scene
can be captured in great detail with the touch of a button. This work
investigates whether it is advisable to recreate an environment in detail by
hand or whether it is recommended to use panorama images for virtual
environments in certain scenarios. For this purpose, an interactive virtual
environment was created in which a handmade 3D environment is almost
indistinguishable from an environment created with panorama images. Interactive
elements were added and a user study was conducted to investigate the effect of
both environments to the user. The study conducted indicates that panorama
images can be a useful substitute for 3D modeled environments.
