Throwable 360 degree Panoramic Ball Camera

Here's what I am waiting for: The 360-degree 3D panorama video format. Videos are recorded by holding up the torch-like camera orb which records in every direction. You no longer just watch recordings; you explore them. On a traditional TV, besides the playback controls, you control the direction to watch at any point during playback using a simple remote control. But the real experience is wearing the VR helmet which, using head-tracking, enables you to watch in every direction during the recorded movie. You can pretty much go and re-experience your vacation, even seeing things you never saw while you were there in person.<p>How far are we from this being possible with current tech?

There is the advantage that in every photo you're going to have at least one human supplicating to the ball :)

Very cool idea. Did you notice the patent pending? What's your thought on the patentability of this "idea".<p>I know when I first saw just the picture of the ball camera, my first thought was, "oh, if you throw the ball in the air you could take a 360 at the apex". I then read that is what they are doing.<p>So, does the patent satisfy the "non-obviousness" test? It certainly seems clever, but it also seems to me highly likely that this is neither novel nor non-obvious.

Very cool. Stitching needs a lot of improvement though.

At my old lab we built something similar (camera + ball + throwable) 12 years ago: <a href="http://www.ri.cmu.edu/pub_files/1999/5/ICRA_Cyclops_99.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.ri.cmu.edu/pub_files/1999/5/ICRA_Cyclops_99.pdf</a><p>Available electronic components back then were way larger than what's available today: we could only fit a single CCD camera in the ball. It did send a real-time video stream, though.

This + catapult = want.<p>Please don't mod me down for my dreams.

Would be better to lock the aperture and focus for all of the elements to the same values. Awesome idea!

Seems like a really cool gadget. The resulting pictures are really cool and remind of Google street view more than anything else. I wonder if some of the techniques Google used to stitch together street view pictures could also be used to improve the results from this camera...

Overall interesting idea but I would expect better quality from single device. Now it looks like that each camera is completely independent - at least it is very easy to see lines where photos are connected because of different amount of light captured.

Looks like even 4π² steradian solid angle, not just 360°. Very cool stuff.

What I am looking forward to is a walkable sphere with a projection on the inside wall. You step in, walk in the direction you want to explore. Google street view would rock.

Much more usable &#38; interesting than the Lytro, IMHO.

Shouldn't that be 41,253 deg^2, not 360 deg?<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_degree" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_degree</a>

It'd be a lot more awesome if it were smaller. I can't imagine carrying that around at the moment. However, it is really cool.

Why does it have to be a throwable ball? I'd imagine a much better picture if I had the camera on an extendable stick. Perhaps offering both options. I also wish the stitching was better, Microsoft's Photosynth app does an amazing job. An option to be able to lock exposure may help the quality.

Check out the other projects on that page also, the Augmented Reality Bridge builder using a white board is really cool: <a href="http://jonaspfeil.de/arbridgebuilder" rel="nofollow">http://jonaspfeil.de/arbridgebuilder</a>

It would seriously make me vomit and be in awe if you could play these sequences back in the AlloSphere at UCSB:<p><a href="http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/</a>

Mind is racing with possibilities of what this could do when combined with a water balloon slingshot. Wonder how waterproof and shockproof they have made it.

I'm sure this has the attention of the DOD. Personally I'd love to have one for while I was hiking.

Its so cool that he lists hardware and software on the right side. (Hint: its not Haskell)

This + high-altitude weather balloon = nice panoramas.

Is that Khao Sok national park, Thailand at 1:03?

This would be great if you could tie it to a helium balloon and anchor it down with fishing line or the like. You could let it fly up 50 feet or so and capture some amazing images.