Late last week at Google I/O, the company announced, in unison with GoPro, the Jump platform. Jump is more than simply a 360-degree VR camera rig.
It’s actually a whole system involving the cameras, Google’s servers that assemble all the footage, and customizations to YouTube to enable true, stereoscopic VR. It’s a process for stitching together video in a seamless way without making the directors or editors become computer science experts. There’s a lot to Jump.
“So, the rigs that we built include 16 camera modules, mounted in a circular array. And you can actually use off the shelf cameras for this if you want, stated Clay Bavor, Google’s vice president of product. “And you can make the array out of basically any material. We’ve made one out of 3D-printed plastic, one out of machined metal, and for good measure, of course, we also made one out of cardboard. What’s critical is the actual geometry, and we spent a lot of time optimizing everything. Basically, Google did all the math for you. The size of the rig, the number and placement of the cameras, their field of view, relative overlap — every last detail.”
Jump will officially be launching this summer, at which time Google plans to release to the public the plans and the necessary geometries required for anyone to build the rig themselves. Once constructed, or if the user opts to purchase the GoPro rig instead, Google’s software will automatically stitch together the video taken from all 16 cameras and allow the video to then be uploaded to YouTube so that others can step into the virtual world that you just filmed.
Source: 3ders.org