(it may contain language mistakes 'cause i am french)
NOTE:
The spherigraph is only an idea, no prototype has been made and no testing has been done. I share my idea for this project just come to life for everyone who want !!... My only wish for now is to be put in relation with people who want this project come true and following the evolution of it... I am not an engineer or technician, I don't know anything about electronic building ... I have good notions in photography, cinema and 3D, and many graphic skills but that's all :(
Since the announcement of oculus rift and the tests of the SDK ... My brain has never been so bubbled ... For me this is THE device that will revolutionize video games and all media dependent from image ... It's obvious ! As an indépendant film director as soon as I read the first tests of occulus, my creative fancies exploded and I started to think about a camera that'll record movies at 360x360 in stereoscopic 3D and started to follow all stuffs about 360 ° video capture system...
Today there are few solutions to catch 360° videos on the market... Here are some of theses (non-exaustive)
SPHERICAM :
Virtual Tour Cameral System :
My conclusions have been the following : Prices of these systems are expensive whereas they aren't perfect and don't offer true stereoscopic 3D. They simply project the 2D video (or photo) in a virtual 3D sphere... So, No stereoscopic 3D ...The immersion (although surprising and very good) is not complete ... Because there isn't the parallax, and no relief in the environment ...
After all my research it seems that the 360 3D video with 3D was not really technologically possible at the moment (i mean at a afforable price on the market). But would it be possible with photography ?
We know that with just a slight camera shift equivalent to the distance between eyes, the parallax is obtained for a relief image, it's known that the total human field of view is around 220°
So for a depth in a 360 spherical photography, it would require a camera that records an angle close to the human field of view + all the moves from an eye in horizontal and vertical directions (360x360) for the horizontal and vertical parallax ...
The first system i thought about requiries one caméra that should move on a maximum horizontal axes and one other that should move on a maximum vertical axes for each horizontal axes ... For example: for 120 horizontal pitcures/axes we should have 120 vertical pictures/axes for each horizontal axes... 120X120 = 14400 pictures for a single photo
So this is impossible for the moment to have all horizontal and vertical displacements over a short time and if it was it would make a huge file difficult to calculate on an affordable software... :(
But if we keep one parallax (horizontal) we can get a 360° stereoscopic 3D with a good immersion ... if we can find the cameras that captures an angle about 180X360 and a rotation system programmed to capture a video with maximum possible angles on a 360 rotation : With a slow rotation or high frame rate ... Or both :D...
After much research my answer was not found on the side of sports cameras (like gopro) as I thought but the side of security cameras (called hemispheric camera) ... So... good news: the technology seems to exist ... It would just need to be fitted with my concept of synchronized rotation all that with a dedicated wiewing/reading software ... The spherigraph was born ...
So I decided to put the project on paper and on video to give my idea to a passionate and creative audience (like me) ... Recently I looked up again thinking "I am stupid this is a too simple idea that must already exist on the market" ... After some researches the answer was there was nothing, just a few prototypes close to my idea or aborted projects... But NO OPTIMIZED PRODUCT ON THE MARKET AS I WISH so my video wasn't useless
http://www.stereopanoramas.com/blog/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFsERnHu0Cc
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/projects/sp_mos/
http://hackaday.com/2010/01/14/spherical-and-stereoscopic-photography/
Questions/answers :
I didn't understand : is it a camera or a video camera ?
Well the sphérigraph shoot videos but what you see in the perigons will be a kind of "animated photography" ... Let me explain: For the parallax each eye see a separate video image so when you stop your head it's as if you had put stop on the video, the image is Stoped and when you move your head the video will be played depending on where you look, so when you turn your head that will create a small animation visible if something is moving in the scenery ... If you move the head quickly the video will be seen quickly if you move your head slowly the video will be seen slowly. MOVE LEFT = video rewind ... MOVE RIGHT = video play
What happens if I look up to more than 90 degrees ?
In this case the idea is ... The software will load both perigons you see in front of you and the other two behind you. those in strict opposition (symmetric) ... These four textures should be matched to form two perfect spheres... Of course it will obviously generate a few aberrations at junction.
What could be the price of spherigraph?
I'm not an expert of the market, in my dreams sphérigaph cost as cheap as possible, but it includes: 2 hig tech cameras, a powerful internal program and an optimized rotation system ... I can not imagine this under $ 1,500 but not more than $ 3,000 ... This will be a product for a passionate audience about virtual reality, photography and new technologies initially, and it is a product that relies heavily on the oculus rift's succes ... The price will fall according to the components prices of course
And the software?
I wish a free viewing software and open source, so that everyone can improve, customize and optimize it: The idea of the spherigraph is truly "perigons exchange" and dissemination, not a product for profit, The Important stuff here is the perigons not spherigraph itself ... Companies will be free to sell their périgons ( if the product comes out it will happen quickly with porn... I think ) but I know the internet and I know that sharing and downloading would take over anyway ! and this is a good thing ... :D
If don't have the oculus rift , what do I do ?!
You could view the perigone with 3D vision (if you computer support it) in front of a screen or even in 2D ... But you would miss out on that immersion offered by perigons with oculus rift ... The spherigraph was clearly designed for the oculus rift
What could be the resolution of the camera?
Between displays capabilities of occulus and capacities of cameras on the market today, I will be aiming a good full HD compressed correctly (similar video quality to that go pro hero 3 black edition but croped like a hemispheric camera because it is a "sphere ready" texture) with a frame rate from 1/10 to 120 fps (1/10 for movies at drakest nights and 120 fps for the best sunny conditions) with parameterizable rotation, example : rotation of 4 seconds for ideal conditions (shutter: 120 fps) and a rotation of 80 minutes (shutter : 1/10 fps) for very important darkness conditions... In this example the idea is to have maximum different angles seen by perigon...I even love a "240 fps HD" mode or 4k up to 60 fps mode, but this is another story ... Anyway, these numbers have no meaning and it will require multiple tests to determine this and I can not tell you more for now... My wishes in a far future : 24X36 sensor 8K 32-bit 4:4:4 raw up to 2000 fps (this in 20 or 30 years hahaha!) I share my idea beacause i want this product come true and use it so WE can make it !!
I repeat : this is pure theory ... I don't have any money and no skills in electronics hardwares and softwares so impossible for me to make a prototype at home... That's why I made this video to encourage skilled people as passionate as me, to try to build some prototypes...