Really romullus?.. i was thinking in some sort of software vudu to do the same but i could not find anything useful. Hugin?... never heard of that.
what about rendering a full 360 pano (with region render) save as hdri and load it as environment?... then you could use mentalray with just that environment to create a 180° hemisferical. XD.
I'm gonna try that. And let you know.