The Facebook Surround 360 system,which made its debut at the F8 developers conference, includes a production-ready camera -- which costs about US$30,000 to build and looks like a flying saucer from a science fiction movie -- and software for controlling the camera and for stitching and rendering what the camera captures.
"In designing this camera, we wanted to create a professional-grade end-to-end system that would capture, edit and render high-quality 3D-360 video," said
Brian K. Cabral, Facebook's director of engineering.
"In doing so," he continued, "we hoped to meaningfully contribute to the 3D-360 camera landscape by creating a system that would enable more VR content producers and artists to start producing
3D-360 video."
Is Facebook trying to get into the camera business? Not quite.
Open Source 360
"Facebook isn't trying to sell lots of
$30,000 360-degree cameras, but rather to make it easier for everyone to make really high-quality 360-degree videos,"
said Jan Dawson, chief analyst with Jackdaw Research.
"It's not like a GoPro camera," noted Michael Goodman, director for digital media at Strategy Analytics. "It's not the kind of thing you're going to take on your family vacation."
What's more, this summer Facebook will offer the plans for the camera and the code for its software for free on the popular developers' website GitHub.
"We're open-sourcing the camera and the software to accelerate the growth of the 3D-360 ecosystem -- developers can leverage the designs and code, and content creators can use the camera in their productions," Cabral said.
However, there probably won't be a rush to build Facebook's camera, maintained Glenn Hower, an analyst for Parks Associates.
"Right now, 360 cameras have a very unique proposition," he told
TechNewsWorld.
More on that, visit: www.technewsworld.com/story/Facebook-Entices-VR-Content-Creators-With-Open-Source-Surround-Cam-83361.html
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