[Coco] Virtual Reality

[Allen Huffman]

> On Feb 18, 2024, at 4:59 PM, John Mark Mobley via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:
> 
> Forgive me if I use the wrong terminology.
> It is time to start thinking about recording computer fest in 3D,
> 180-degree, or 360-degree formats.
> I cannot afford to be an early adopter of this technology, but perhaps a
> number of us can pull together and pull this off.
> Or perhaps someone can study this idea and do a feasibility study.
> I understand the new Apple Vision Pro is capable of recording video.
> Who can investigate this?


Capturing content like this seems like a worthy effort. I remember getting an HD camcorder years before I ever owned an HD TV. I figured all the stuff I recorded would eventually be on an HD TV, so...

I’ve played with 3-D video/photos and 360 stuff since the 2000s, though the way it was done with the tech at the time is laughable today… For 360,  had a half-mirror ball mount for my camera. You’d shoot photos pointing up and it would capture a spherical image that could be processed in to a panorama. For 3-D, I had this huge clamp on thing for my pre-HD camcorder that would flip left/right with the odd and even scan lines of old analog TV (‘interlaced 3-D”). Crazy.

Today, you can just buy a 360 camera or a 3-D camera. Much easier!

* 3-D — Like the old red/blue 3-D movies (or modern ones). You see depth, but you can’t look left/right, etc.

* VR380 — Uses multiple lenses to capture images in all directions. When you watch it, you can turn your head in any direction and see whatever is there. There is also VR360-3D but I have never seen a consumer device that does that. YouTube and Facebook support VR360.

* VR180 — This is kind of a failed format, which is a pity. I think it is the most practical. I had one of the first VR180 cameras. It only lets you look left, right up and down, but not all the way around. My VR180 that had two lenses so it could record in 3-D. You could watch it on a cheap VR helmet (or in one of those Google Cardboard things where you put you phone in it) and it was pretty amazing.

 I had one of my early VR cameras (RICOH Theta S) at the 2017 CoCoFest. I just found a clip I recorded and uploaded it to YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC2CxNxh514

I have had maybe six different 360 cameras, so far. They keep getting better.  I’ll share a link to something I recorded with my current Insta360 X3 if there is interest.

These types of cameras that have only two lenses (front and back) have to capture everything, so the quality is nowhere near as good as a normal camera would be in one direction. But, it is certainly a lot more like “being there” than just watching a video or looking at photos.

		— A

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Allen Huffman - PO Box 7634 - Urbandale IA 50323 - 515-999-0227 (vmail/TXT only)
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