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New 360-Degree Video Capture Method Unveiled
cartechboy writes "Mercedes-Benz has devised a crazy new 360-degree video capture method that allows you to follow live-action video from just about any angle you choose. This new piece of tech will launch with the Mercedes AMG F1 team this year, and gives you the ability to swivel and tilt the camera angle in pretty much any direction as the car speeds around the track. The device uses wide-angle cameras arranged in a ball and then stitched together into a panoramic view. Of course there's an iOS app that lets you watch all this."
Sounds like they teamed up with this guy: http://www.panono.com/ballcame...
A new 360 degree video capture method? Or the same old method, done again? I read the article and I can't think of what's new about this method. Now a spherical CCD would be new and interesting. It's a nice system, but new method?
I have seen this done before and it isn't so "crazy". Yay sensational media!
Seems like a good idea for a race car and can probably be integrated into self-driving cars at some point.
http://www.northropgrumman.com...
Domination isn't good for anybody, on either side. A balance promotes innovation. So whenever one platform starts to dominate, the *right* thing to do especially for nerds like Slashdotees, is to apply negative feedback, and always support the underdog.
Besides, when did popular ever imply best? Look at the number 1 records in the pop charts since forever. I rest my case.
This.
Really? As a confirmed Apple hater I would love to believe this but... to develop for Apple I would have to buy a Mac. Then I would have to pay what is it... $100/year the last I checked to get the development environment. (chump change I guess after buying a Mac) Then.. the only way the app could ever get on to more than a fraction of a percent of people's devices is to get it approved by the Apple store which everyone I have talked to claims is a real pain in the ass.
To develop for Android just download the development environment for your favorite of Linux/Windows/Mac OS for free and start coding. It seems to me that Google is trying a lot harder to get developers than Apple is.
What I think is the real issue is that a lot of developers don't want to deal with the variety of screen sizes one finds on Android. They like Apple's closed little world. HTML was supposed to free us of this issue. With sizes being defined in percents, data inside of elements that describe what the data is, not how to display it, etc... devices were supposed to determine how to display things best based on their own unique hardware profiles. That was html documents but by now applications should work that way too.
But... thest f@!#ng graphics designers and marketers had to mess that all up. Instead everything is defined down to how it will look pixel per pixel. So of course... supporting many different sizes and shapes of devices means making sure your pixel by pixel design looks good on them all. So.. the lazy fckrs only want to support iOS because it is easier to design that way in a limited environment.
Mercedes-Benz has devised a crazy new 360-degree video capture method
What is this crazy new system you ask? The exact same system that 360 degree video has always been captured!
to develop for Apple I would have to buy a Mac. Then I would have to pay what is it... $100/year the last I checked to get the development environment. (chump change I guess after buying a Mac) Then.. the only way the app could ever get on to more than a fraction of a percent of people's devices is to get it approved by the Apple store which everyone I have talked to claims is a real pain in the ass.
You're looking at it from the point of view of a dabbler; a hobbyist. If you're developing professionally the hardware and developer subscription cost is negligible compared to paying for the actual design, development and coding. Approval for the App Store is not difficult if you conform to the rules, which are there mostly to raise quality and security - as a professional developer you will want that.
The environment is more controlled (yes, that's a good thing), though screen sizes vary quite a bit too. Apple have layout technologies that help you with that and yes, they are somewhat like HTML in intention, where you specify constraints rather than pixel sizes.
But the biggest boon to professional developers is that the platform is really well-designed, has relatively few bugs and annoyances, is fairly secure, gives you an awful lot of good stuff for free, and supports a nice easy-to-use language as well. Obviously non of that matters to you because you're prejudiced - your first statement states that clearly. You're also not a professional developer, because your argument is irrelevant.
I'm waiting for the driving goggles that have cameras around the car feeding into a VR headset. 360 view in 180 headturn. No blind spots. No need for windows, and optics that correct for any human deficiency (color-mapped to change traffic light color for colorblind drivers, off-center warnings to indicate emergency vehicles and situations). Piping information in to a driver in real-time with image processing is the next step of safety. Full HUD and image corrections to "fix" common human errors.
Learn to love Alaska
Obviously the ability was lost when BeOS died, and they've now invented a way to do it without BeOS.
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On my 2GHz laptop, the CPU is pinned to 100%, and all I see are frozen frames that skip through the video every few seconds. The dragging response is so sluggish as to be meaningless since any visual feedback is delayed many seconds. I guess this technology isn't ready for prime time unless you have a bleeding edge gamer GPU or something.
...but four pi steradians.
Really? As a confirmed Apple hater I would love to believe this but... to develop for Apple I would have to buy a Mac. Then I would have to pay what is it... $100/year the last I checked to get the development environment. (chump change I guess after buying a Mac) Then.. the only way the app could ever get on to more than a fraction of a percent of people's devices is to get it approved by the Apple store which everyone I have talked to claims is a real pain in the ass.
To develop for Android just download the development environment for your favorite of Linux/Windows/Mac OS for free and start coding. It seems to me that Google is trying a lot harder to get developers than Apple is.
What I think is the real issue is that a lot of developers don't want to deal with the variety of screen sizes one finds on Android. They like Apple's closed little world. HTML was supposed to free us of this issue. With sizes being defined in percents, data inside of elements that describe what the data is, not how to display it, etc... devices were supposed to determine how to display things best based on their own unique hardware profiles. That was html documents but by now applications should work that way too.
But... thest f@!#ng graphics designers and marketers had to mess that all up. Instead everything is defined down to how it will look pixel per pixel. So of course... supporting many different sizes and shapes of devices means making sure your pixel by pixel design looks good on them all. So.. the lazy fckrs only want to support iOS because it is easier to design that way in a limited environment.
The real issue is not the number of screen sizes combined with a marketing mandate. It's the sheer number of versions that you have to support. With Android, there are still devices being sold today with version 2.1 all the way to the latest release. Contrast that to Apple where pretty much the entire ecosystem adopts to the latest release very quickly, and if you want to worry about 3-year old phones you're still only one iOS revision back. The issues with handling that wide a range of operating system versions require a significant investment in both planning and support after the app goes live. Smaller companies or even company divisions that have a small team are going to go for the simpler solution every time. Better to ship on one platform than to try to support everything and never ship.
You can get panoramic mirrors for your iphone and many other applications now. No BeOS required.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
You can also get a superior optic that lets you actually see the display while you're shooting the video.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Red Bull did this a year and a half ago... http://www.redbullusa.com/cs/S...
the mercedes project was shot with this device - http://freedom360.us/
basically it is an array of gopro cameras which has been used in many 360 video projects over the last few years
more info on the mercedes shoot here - http://visualise.com/news/2014...
And the throngs of wide eyed, naive IOS developers who think it's the land of milk and honey where money falls from the cloud and their app will magically makes them rich.
Most developers never break even on the $99 subscription fee, let alone for the equipment and almost never for the time.
I know over 20, all hopped on the bandwagon and bought mac's. Not one has made $99. Most have abandoned their applications around the Iphone 4 days.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The real non issue is not the number of screen sizes combined with a marketing mandate. It's the sheer number of versions that you have to support. With Android, there are still devices being sold today with version 2.1 all the way to the latest release.
There, fixed that for you.
Almost all the API's are backwards compatible, so the applications written for 2.1 will work on 4.4. This only becomes an issue when.
1. you use a non standard API (I.E. one put in by Samsung on their phones).
2. You target an API on a higher level (I.E. an API that started in 4.0 wont work in 2.6).
Its better to support half of 80% of the market than 90% of 20% of the market.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Apple's marketing dept. couldn't have said it better.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
You're looking at it from the point of view of a dabbler; a hobbyist. .
You mean like Woz/Jobs/Gates/Allen/Page/Brin/Zuckerberg et al and now Acton and Koum? Our industry is built by dabblers and hobbyists, they shape our world. "Professional Developers" are merely wait staff in the grand scheme of things.
Assuming the racing car is going around in a loop of some form, just fix the camera to the car and you'll get a 360 image.
Where an article about a Mercedes-Benz camera devolves into a thread about Apple developers within one page.
There's an iJunk now? Cool!
But does it only connect to Apple interns?
Most developers never break even on the $99 subscription fee, let alone for the equipment and almost never for the time. I know over 20, all hopped on the bandwagon and bought mac's. Not one has made $99. Most have abandoned their applications around the Iphone 4 days.
[citation needed]
Your claims are nonsense, unless all your friends are just basement-dwelling YOLOs with no actual programming skills. I have been an independent iOS developer for years (in my spare time, as I have a full-time job) and my proceeds always surpass the measly $99/year - which also gets you two "incidents" for access to Apple engineers to help debug your problem. Oh, and I never have problems with getting apps accepted, never. Your friends abandon their apps after 4 days! Hah! Real pros, I'm sure.
Its better to support half of 80% of the market than 90% of 20% of the market.
Um, no. All data points to iOS developers making more money than Android developers. Google it.
With their head bobbing around while fucking?
We have a video conferencing device that does the exact same thing. Nothing new here.
...Most have abandoned their applications around the Iphone 4 days.
...Your friends abandon their apps after 4 days! Hah! Real pros, I'm sure.
Just a clarification, I'm sure GP meant his friends "abandoned their apps around the days of the iPhone 4," not "abandoned their iPhone apps after 4 days."
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Now with Fisheye as standard.
360 view, nothing new.
At least get the camera smoothed out like the gyro system in Moto GP, then it will be news worth reading.
Just pick the lowest version you care to support. Target it. Backwards compatibility does the rest. It's not that hard.
No blind spots - until a glitch disables your goggles... :)