Comments on: Spherical Storytelling

Spherical Storytelling

Dave Faris — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:16:03 -0800

Immersive and panoramic full motion video.

How it works.

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:18:36 -0800

More examples.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:42:35 -0800

Whoa. That's pretty dang cool.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:46:38 -0800

Very neat. It would be great if there was better scrubbing back and forth along the video. Maybe there is on a faster connection, I dunno. It would really feel like something out of that Denzel Washington movie Deja Vu.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:48:28 -0800

I could watch the whale one for hours.

By: finite

finite — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:58:56 -0800

Neat camera (and amazing whale video), but really shitty presentation of the data. I want to see the whole 360° at once, without needing to pan around! As it is now, we're always missing half of it. It should be done like this (which, as a bonus, doesn't require flash to view).

By: finite

finite — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:01:25 -0800

[cue queue of patent infringement lawsuits]

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:07:36 -0800

The whale one is unbelievably cool.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:15:56 -0800

[cue queue of patent infringement lawsuits] Heh. There are a bunch of mefites that chime in when patent law comes up saying that software patents are the best thing since sliced bread. But this certainly violates some patents, and if the developers had done a patent search, and found out about it, they probably never would have even started coding. The fact is, almost all software wouldn't have been written if software authors had to spend their time doing patent searches. Modern web browsers all violated the Eolas plug-in patent, and patent violation is what allowed something like Flash to exist in the first place.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:17:50 -0800

Oh, and about this: The depth of field in the x-axis is way to high, giving passing buildings a huge curved effect. The same thing isn't true of the y-axis so it ends up being very weird looking. At least in the city view one I looked at.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:34:44 -0800

This was an easy development to predict years ago after pano photos came out, I'm only surprised it's taken this long (or maybe it's not new?). The next step is to allow the viewer the ability to decide where to go, instead of a pre-scripted trajectory. This has already been done with pano still shots.

By: meinvt

meinvt — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:14:04 -0800

It strikes me as an obvious idea, with mediocre execution, at least over my connection. Even with pre-loading the whole movie it seems to drop resolution when running, requiring a pause to see the detail. Not what I want to see. Also, I really dislike the geometry of the view and it lacks the pan and zoom feature that quicktime spherical views have had for years and years. If I'm going to be pausing to see the content I want to be able to zoom in. I hope they keep going with it, but it isn't there yet.

By: tehloki

tehloki — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:28:55 -0800

Wow. Video games just got a lot cooler.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:36:32 -0800

They need a scrollbar or other gui control, rather then using dragging to pan.

By: abulafa

abulafa — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:57:35 -0800

Definitely done before, but very hard to productize. See the defunct ipix. (Their research arm, specifically.)

By: zardoz

zardoz — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:01:02 -0800

That's really cool. Is a fisheye lens really necessary, though? That distortion works for some situations, but a simple wide angle would be fine. This has big potential.

By: Baby_Balrog

Baby_Balrog — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:06:26 -0800

>< Doesn't work for me with firefox portable.

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:29:24 -0800

Yikes, that distorted city view reminds me of some bad trips I've had. No thanks.

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:58:15 -0800

It says on their homepage that their technology is patented, so at least the PTO disagrees with you, delmoi -- what patent lawsuit are you talking about here? I have no idea what you're hypothesizing -- do you?

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:19:52 -0800

posted by delmoi The depth of field in the x-axis is way to high, giving passing buildings a huge curved effect. The same thing isn't true of the y-axis so it ends up being very weird looking. At least in the city view one I looked at. The depth-of-field is the same for both axes.

By: sfts2

sfts2 — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:40:35 -0800

I can't wait for the Rule 34 versions.

By: Mister Cheese

Mister Cheese — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:07:05 -0800

This is really, really cool. I don't care if there is lens distortion, I CAN LOOK ALL AROUND WHILE IT MOVES.

By: Tzarius

Tzarius — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 02:05:15 -0800

Mister Cheese is right, being able to Look Around instead of just Looking At is a major difference. Vertical movement (ie, Looking Up) would be even better.

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:58:54 -0800

It does sort of fly in the face of normal video/motion picture storytelling though. It'd be hard to notice what you're supposed to focus on. As for the distortion, they address some of that in the "how it's made" demo, where they describe a way of projecting the video onto a largish dome, for a community viewing experience. Displayed in a flat format, as it's done here, just accentuates the distortion. On one of the pages, there's a link to an article for another application of the system -- one you're probably already aware of. But they also mention how they can only shoot five hours a day due to the changing angle of the sun, which I thought was sort of curious.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:17:48 -0800

The whale thing didn't seem to be keystoned as badly as the city one though; why is that I wonder? Different hardware?

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:43:38 -0800

No streets to accentuate the forced perspectives?

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:44:22 -0800

Yea looking through the other videos I think that is it. Seems like natural surroundings may be more effective in general, no straight lines to bend.... Thanks Dave!