3DPhotoGallery

Reviewing all pictures you take on vacation, or simply after hanging out with your friends is as easy as scrolling through them in the default tool Windows puts at your disposal. However, there are various alternatives to enhance the whole experience, and 3DPhotoGallery is more than enough proof.

A neat advantage is that the application can run directly from a USB flash drive, without the need to go through a setup process. This means you can use it on other computers as well, without having to worry that the target PC has to suffer, since registries don’t need to be modified for things to work out as intended.

Every time you run the application you’re taken to the configuration panel so you can select a picture folder to use as a default gallery. Apart from a folder selection dialog, there’s a drop down menu for resolution selection, with three preset values, as well as the possibility to run in fullscreen mode.

Hitting OK brings up another window of the size you selected in the configuration panel. The whole experience suddenly turns into a video game, where you get to view all your pictures from a first-person experience, while navigating through a generated, closed environment.

Moving around is done with the W A S D keys, as well as the mouse to look around. All pictures hang on walls in custom frames, and folders are shown as solid doors. Sadly, you can’t access other folders, even if they contain images too. What’s more, there’s only one preset environment, which is limited to a few slots, and you have to go through different rooms to view the entire gallery.

To sum it up, 3DPhotoGallery comes with a neat idea to let you view your entire picture collection in a fun, different way than conventional methods. It can keep you busy for a while, but with no customization options, and only one environment, you can quickly grow tired of the same room over and over again.