VR180

There are other formats stemming from spherical video, one of the more popular being VR180 [1]. VR180 videos are stereoscopic videos that a user can look around in, but only films 180 degrees in front of the camera, unlike 360 which shows everything. This works great for videos where the action is only going to be in front of the user, similar to why we may choose a pyramid type projection for 360 videos. This limitation makes it easier to capture these videos, as it can be done with two cameras similar to monoscopic 360 video instead of a whole spherical apparatus like a stereoscopic 360 video. One such camera is the Insta360 EVO which allows the user to film monoscopic 360 videos or VR180 through folding and unfolding the cameras [2]. These cameras fall somewhere between monoscopic and stereoscopic 360 camera prices, making it easier for consumers to make proper VR content.

6 Degrees of Freedom (6DoF)

Spherical videos can be thought of as 3DoF (degrees of freedom) where the user has 3 axes of freedom; looking up and down, looking left and right, and tilting the head left and right. 6DoF would add moving forward and back, moving left and right, and moving up and down. This would allow the user to move their head in some of the space in a video and get the proper depth effect we see in reality. OMAF’s v2 standard has some basic support built in for this medium, which will likely evolve further as it becomes more realized. Some of these videos are already emerging, but the apparatuses to capture them are incredibly expensive. Meta has a design for one they hope to release soon that has a whopping 16 cameras in a large sphere to capture everything from different perspectives to allow for this head movement [3]. This format is a very exciting next step to the medium of VR entertainment, and will be interesting to see what comes beyond it.

References

Cited References

[1]    Spatial Media - VR180 Video Format. (2023), Google. Accessed: Dec. 3, 2023. [Source Code]. Available: https://github.com/google/spatial-media/blob/master/docs/vr180.md

[2]    Insta360. “Insta360 EVO - Relive what you love.” Insta360.com. https://www.insta360.com/product/insta360-evo (accessed Dec. 3, 2023).

[3]    A. P. Pozo et al., "An Integrated 6DoF Video Camera and System Design," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 38, no. 6, pp. 1-16, Nov. 2019, doi: 10.1145/3355089.3356555.

General References

[1]    A. Yaqoob, T. Bi, and G. -M. Muntean, "A Survey on Adaptive 360° Video Streaming: Solutions, Challenges and Opportunities," IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 2801-2838, Jul. 2020, doi: 10.1109/COMST.2020.3006999.

[2]    M. M. Hannuksela and Y. -K. Wang, "An Overview of Omnidirectional MediA Format (OMAF)," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 109, no. 9, pp. 1590-1606, Sept. 2021, doi: 10.1109/JPROC.2021.3063544.