Information processing system, communication system, and image sharing method

An information processing system for communication with a plurality of communication terminals, each communication terminal to display a wide-view image having a wide angle of view, the information processing system comprising circuitry configured to:

• in response to receiving, from a first communication terminal that currently displays a first wide-view image and receives an operation to capture a wide-view image by a user, viewpoint information corresponding to a currently being displayed viewpoint and an imaging request, transmit the imaging request to an image capturing apparatus;
• associate a second wide-view image captured by the image capturing apparatus with the viewpoint information received from the first communication terminal;
• transmit the second wide-view image captured by the image capturing apparatus and the viewpoint information received from the first communication terminal to a second communication terminal so that the second communication terminal displays the second wide-view image at a viewpoint corresponding to the viewpoint information;
• receive a URL (“uniform resource locator”) request from the image capturing apparatus;
• and
• transmit the URL to the image capturing apparatus in response to the URL request.

An image sharing method performed by an information processing system communicable with a plurality of communication terminals, each communication terminal to display a wide-view image having a wide angle of view, the method comprising:

• in response to receiving, from a first communication terminal that currently displays a first wide-view image and receives an operation to capture a wide-view image by a user, viewpoint information corresponding to a currently being displayed viewpoint and an imaging request, transmitting the imaging request to an image capturing apparatus;
• associating a second wide-view image captured by the image capturing apparatus with the viewpoint information received from the first communication terminal;
• transmitting the second wide-view image captured by the image capturing apparatus and the viewpoint information received from the first communication terminal to a second communication terminal so that the second communication terminal displays the second wide-view image at a viewpoint corresponding to the viewpoint information;
• receiving a URL (“uniform resource locator”) request from the image capturing apparatus;
• and
• transmitting the URL to the image capturing apparatus in response to the URL request.