Attached Link: http://www.ptgui.com

A panorama file is usually a .mov extension (other format exist) created by a software able to stich pictures shot from a central point (focal point of the camera- very important point). Various panarama format exist : equirectangular, spherical...

Stitching can be operated by quicktime but only on Mac OS and you have to purchase the version able to do that (I cannot help you as I work with Windows).
For Windows I use several softwares. The best for me is PTGUI (see link). I use also Realviz Stitcher 5. These softwares automate the creation of the panorama IF the pictures are really taken with a good focal point of the camera and sufficient overlapping between pictures to ease the work of the software and have a very smooth blending of pictures. PTGUI seems to work better than stitcher if some shot mistakes have been done.

Regarding the viewer, other viewer exist : Spi-v, Deval ..... see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoToolsNG/ for more info

Regarding pano creation in Vue the results until now are not satisfying

Hope it will help you

bye