
Surround 360 is now open source - samber
https://code.facebook.com/posts/265413023819735/surround-360-is-now-open-source/
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dkarapetyan
This is just nerd candy right? I mean facebook is in the same business as
google when it comes to what the business model is based on. Get people to
pull levers in a virtual casino and sell the resulting statistics to
advertisers. The surprising thing is that I think it actually works. New
graduates will be lining up to work on projects like this and then end up
debugging shitty PHP.

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mgraczyk
I work on similar projects at Google, so I can say with certainty that this is
not just about candy. YouTube makes up a sizable portion of Google's business.
Providing 360 capture devices like this (ours is called Jump) allows people to
create new content for YouTube, which can then be monetized.

Building cool VR hardware and software is not as distant from Google's and
Facebook's core businesses as you believe. Watching 360 videos with 3D audio
isn't necessarily the height of human experience, but it's a far cry from
"pulling levers in a virtual casino".

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dkarapetyan
And how many people work on that project? 10? 100? 200 people?

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mgraczyk
Many, and many more on similarly interesting projects. All I can say is that
~nobody writes PHP :)

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dkarapetyan
Lucky then.

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Veratyr
Hardware looks very similar to
[https://vr.google.com/jump/](https://vr.google.com/jump/) and
[https://gopro.com/odyssey](https://gopro.com/odyssey) but with cameras top
and bottom.

Really interesting to head about the math and software that went into it
though and great that they made it open source!

~~~
greenknight
The GoPro cameras are quite different to the cameras that facebook are
using... GoPro cameras have rolling shutter on the lens, whilst the facebook
cameras are using higher quality cameras which have no rolling shutter.

The google jump is also using go pro cameras.

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shahbazac
Can a rig like this be used to extract a depth map/point cloud, instead of
just visual 3d images? What will be the accuracy of such a point cloud?

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qdot76367
You want LIDAR for making the point clouds, and a camera for colorizing them.
Pure photogrammetry is doable (I think that's what Earthmine did for a
while?), but it isn't as pretty or accurate.

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snovv_crash
For single-point-of-view, yes. Otherwise, if you can take images from multiple
viewpoints, there are a bunch of solutions for pure photogrammetry, eg. Pix4d,
Photoscan, Capturing Reality.

Theoretically, there is enough data in the images to build photorealistic
models. Algorithmically, we aren't quite there yet.

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ashitlerferad
More open source cameras:

[http://www.elphel.com/](http://www.elphel.com/)

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intrasight
How about using a dozen Rasperry Pis and camera modules? Perhaps not the same
image quality as a $50K system, but is there any technical reason it couldn't
work with Surround 360?

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banderon
How much would it cost to make one?

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Cshelton
Just by breezing through the hardware specs, using the stuff they recommend,
I'd estimate around $35k -$40k...

So let's call it $50k, built and ready to use =)

those cameras are $1.5k each...17 of them.

Edit: Actually, those lenses are around $700/each as well. And you would
definitely want a professional putting it together for you with that kind of
money. So $100k probably. Definitely made for industry/production use, not for
someone trying to film a weekend trip in the mountains haha.

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criley2
>not for someone trying to film a weekend trip in the mountains haha.

The GoPro Omni and the NCTECH IRIS360 may be a little bit closer to the indie
scene rather than the professional scene, but those solutions are still $2000
- $5000... and are only 4-6 camera solutions.

~~~
redtuesday
There is also 360heros [1][2] which can use up to 14 GoPro cameras for under
10.000.

[1] [http://www.360heros.com/2014/01/worlds-first-fully-
spherical...](http://www.360heros.com/2014/01/worlds-first-fully-
spherical-3d-360-video-and-photo-gear/)

[2]
[http://shop.360heros.com/3DPRO-360-VIDEO-p/3dpro.htm](http://shop.360heros.com/3DPRO-360-VIDEO-p/3dpro.htm)

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sigvef
What are the differences between this and Samsung's Project Beyond camera?
[http://thinktankteam.info/beyond_m/](http://thinktankteam.info/beyond_m/)

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justinclift
As an interesting data point, it looks like they designed the hardware using
Solidworks 2016:

    
    
      https://github.com/facebook/Surround360/blob/master/surround360_design/3d_models/STEP_files/160523_3.STEP#L9-L10
    

(.STEP files - good for CAD data interchange - often include the name of the
creation program)

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dharma1
Nice. Has anyone had a look at the stitching source code - how tightly coupled
is it to this particular camera/lens combo? You can pick up Xiaomi Yi's for
about $70/a piece.

Of course RAW footage from the point gray will give tons more dynamic range
but still would be a relatively decent setup for 3D360.

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greenknight
Pretty sure its not just the raw footage but the face that the action cameras
have rolling shutter... I would assume that the rolling shutter along with the
cameras not being in sync would mean that doing optical flow wouldn't work
correctly in terms of creating a clean image.

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travelhead
Lol guys just buy a gear360, light weight and fits in the palm of your hand.
Been using it for months, $350-$400 on Amazon works great!

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luciens
Gear 360, Kodak SP360 and Ricoh Theta, GoPro Omni are all low resolution
monoscopic 360 capture.

Surround 360, Nokia OZO, Project Beyond, GoPro Odyssey are high resolution
stereo 360.

