Can RICOH THETA Z1 be used in Unity as a webcam?

[nikunjarora12345]

Hey. Thank you for the prompt response. As instructed in the video, I uninstalled the version 2 of the drivers and installed the v1.0.0 for the Z1. It is still working in OBS, however in unity, it is now giving a new error “ERROR - Could not find specified video device” when trying to connect to “RICOH THETA Z1 FullHD”.

[nikunjarora12345]

Got it to work!!! Had to add the DevicePath “foo:bar” key to the registry. Thanks a lot for the help…

For future reference of others, here is a step by step guide:

1. Uninstall the v2 V/Z1 drivers and install the v1 drivers for Z1 from here.
2. Open the windows registry and navigate to Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID{860BB310-5D01-11d0-BD3B-00A0C911CE86}\Instance
3. In the sub items, search for the entry of RICOH THETA Z1 FullHD and 4K. In both those entries, right click and select new → string value.
4. Name the key “DevicePath”. After naming it, double click it to get a popup for inserting value. Give it a value of “foo:bar” (I think it could be anything really).

That should be enough for Z1 to be recognized by unity. For theta V, the v1 drivers seems to make the registry entries automatically so it should work immediately after installing the drivers.

[craig]

@nikunjarora12345 thanks for posting the improved solution. I must have installed a different driver on my system that set the registry for me. When I made the video, I mistakenly thought that Z1 driver 1.0.0 would set everything up automatically.

It’s also possible that I set the registry manually when I was trying to get it to work and then I forgot about it.

Thanks again for your contribution to the community knowledge. That original registry hack was from @zimmermegan a while back and other people have improved the technique over time.

I added your solution to the description on the video and added a link to your post.

[jcasman]

@nikunjarora12345

For future reference of others, here is a step by step guide

This is fantastic. Thank you for providing your solution back to the community. Very helpful.

[craig]

yea, it’s cool. @Justin originally solved the problem with an older driver. @RicoB also posted some solutions, including skybox. There’s really more contributions. As I normally don’t use Unity, I am just an aggregator. I need to figure out an easier way to provide attribution.

@jcasman , if you have time, please send the video link out to some Unity development groups. It’s fun to use streaming video from the Z1 / V and not so difficult if you use the right driver and setup. However, it’s super difficult if you don’t know to use the right driver and registry modification.

I think the THETA V/Z1 might be the best camera for this type of development at a reasonable equipment cost.

[craig]

THETA driver for windows(v2.0) and Unity may work with the virtual camera output of the OBS.

Although the integrated virtual camera of the latest OBS does not work with Unity, the older plugin version seems to work with Unity.

(OBS Virtualcam | OBS Forums)

Unity seems to be aware of this kind of webcam issue,

https://forum.unity.com/threads/webcam-capatibility-not-work-on-publish-setting.857095/#post-6578806

If anyone has time, suggest sending a bug report to them.

[Caleb_Amadoro]

Has there been an updated solution to this form since UVC 3.0 driver came out? Using the UVC 1.0 drivers and 2.0 drivers I still can’t get my Ricoh Theta z1 camera linked up to unity. I have tried just about everything. I am trying to retrieve live video from the z1 onto unity and attach it to a sphere to use it for VR. Any help would be appreciated, I’ve watched about every video online relating to this topic.

[craig]

As of 2023 Dec 8, I had to use OBS as a virtual camera, then use the virtual camera in Unity. I didn’t try to get it working with the RICOH THETA UVC for that long. I used Windows 10 in my test.

this is the driver that I’m using.

Streaming Ricoh Theta Z1 Onto Unity

as a test, does it work in OBS like this: [image] if so, then you can get it into Unity as a virtual cam [image] env [image] test script. Note that I am manually finding the THETA UVC in the list of cameras and then changing the value of devices[NUMBER] You need to adjust devices[4] to the value of UVC on your system. using System.Collections; using System.Collections.Generic; using UnityEngine; public class NewBehaviourScript : MonoBehaviour { public Color color1 = …

[craig]

I did some additional tests with the RICOH THETA Z1 and Unity to check the smoothness of the video inside of Unity. This is how it looks with a moving video.

I have the Z1 on a small tripod with an extension. I have a laptop showing a video in front of the camera.

The camera is in live streaming mode.

OBS is setup as virtual cam

make sure you press “Start Virtual Cam”

[Caleb_Amadoro]

Thank you so much for the help, using the live video feed from a virtual camera through OBS rather than pulling the live video feed directly from the camera allowed unity to work.

[HunterGeitz]

Hi, I’m working with @Caleb_Amadoro and am wondering how to wirelessly connect the Ricoh Theta Z1 to the OBS Virtual Camera and if there’s any way to do so? We were successful in connecting the Ricoh Theta Z1 to OBS’s virtual camera and streaming it to Unity, but that was with connecting the Ricoh Theta Z1 to our laptop with a USB C to USB A cable when our goal is to connect it wirelessly. I have found a plug in guide for connecting the Ricoh Theta Z1 to a YouTube live stream but not OBS which is what we need to connect to so that the virtual camera can connect to Unity. Our final goal is as low latency as possible so not using Youtube or any live streaming platform would be best.

[craig]

You may be able to use the RTSP plug-in (free). See below.

RTSP Streaming Plug-in

I created a RTSP Streaming Plag-in. This is a wireless live streaming plug-in by the RTSP server on THETA. You can open and play the RTSP Stream from RTSP client tool like vlc. As this plugin is under review by RICOH, it will be available later.

You may be able to use RTSP to VLC (not OBS) and then VLC to Unity.

Introducing LibVLCSharp for Unity3D

This would replace OBS virtual cam with VLC.

I have not tried and have not heard of anyone trying it. if you succeed, please post.

This project does not solve your problem, but may be interesting.

Telepresence Using THETA V and Segway by TwinCam Go

A community member pointed out this amazing project using two THETA V cameras. It won an award at Innovation 2018 by a governmental agency. The project was also nominated for SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies next year. I believe the groups behind this project are: Tokyo Metropolitan University Ikei Research Laboratory NTT Communication Basic Science Laboratory [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] …

This is another undergraduate project for telepresence

Successful Theta V stream from drone to VR headset 0.25 miles away

Just figured I would drop a little project update here letting people know about the senior design project I worked on that used a Ricoh Theta V. I know @codetricity and others on here would definitely be interested in it, since I have seen people talking about sending Ricoh Theta V video from a drone, but as far as I know noone has demonstrated anything yet. We built a system that would allow a ground operator to view a livestream video from a drone in their VR headset. The system will send th…

Are you able to post information on your research project? Pictures or project goals?

[biviel]

Hi,
I’m the developer of HDR live streaming plugin. I just finished an upgrade to be able to wirelessly stream to any pc in same network and use live camera feed as regular video capture device/source. What is interesting is that can encode using h.265 too, need a good pc if want to process it in this case.

Is your z1 put into dev mode? If yes I can share the apk directly with you to try, or wait until update is publicly available(need a few days to finalize and send to Ricoh).

[craig]

@biviel

I’m the developer of HDR live streaming plugin. I just finished an upgrade to be able to wirelessly stream to any pc in same network and use live camera feed as regular video capture device/source. What is interesting is that can encode using h.265 too, need a good pc if want to process it in this case.

laszlo, great news. I’ve used your high-quality plugin in the past and look forward to seeing the new release.

Does the ability to stream to a PC require a free or paid login to your service? The RTSP plugin is no longer under development, so it would be better to use the HDR live streaming plugin as it is under active development.

[jcasman]

@biviel

Is your z1 put into dev mode? If yes I can share the apk directly with you to try, or wait until update is publicly available(need a few days to finalize and send to Ricoh)

Oh, @biviel, I’m very interested in seeing the new version. Hope it’s updated on the RICOH plug-in repo soon!

[biviel]

@craig

Does the ability to stream to a PC require a free or paid login to your service? The RTSP plugin is no longer under development, so it would be better to use the HDR live streaming plugin as it is under active development.

Only free registration is required and user is able to control their Z1 through flow.tours website like earlier, to set bitrate, encoding settings, server address where to stream to etc. Once plugin is started will pull this configuration data set by the user and set the Z1 accordingly to stream to RTMP or RTSP or SRT , using h.264 or h.265. Able to stream to OSB too directly using RTSP or SRT too. In HDR or regular video quality. Only requirement is to have both Z1 and PC on same network.

[biviel]

I spent some time lately on backend server and to cover live streaming to Oculus/Meta Rift, Quest, Quest 2/3, HTC Vive HMD’s. It works, but work is still in progress.

Would be great to have a Ricoh Theta Z2, capable of 8k live streaming/in camera stitching. With Z1 it’s also a great experience.

Searching for best infrastructure to cover the globe, testing various CDN’s, AWS network/transfer services. Will have a server up and running in US too soon.

Btw. do you or Greg own a Meta Quest 2 or 3?

[craig]

@biviel

Once plugin is started will pull this configuration data set by the user and set the Z1 accordingly to stream to RTMP or RTSP or SRT , using h.264 or h.265. Able to stream to OSB too directly using RTSP or SRT too. In HDR or regular video quality. Only requirement is to have both Z1 and PC on same network.

Wow, this seems like a big upgrade.

@biviel

Btw. do you or Greg own a Meta Quest 2 or 3?

We do not have a Meta Quest 2 or 3 right now. It seems like the Meta Quest 2 is under $300, which is within reach.

Do you foresee use of the Meta Quest 2 or 3 in entertainment, experiential sales (like house tours), inspection, telepresence from a drone?

[biviel]

@craig

Do you foresee use of the Meta Quest 2 or 3 in entertainment, experiential sales (like house tours), inspection, telepresence from a drone?

yes, absolutely! Clearly extra low latency requirement will only be there in local network for now, controlling a drone may work with ~200ms latency, but not when ~2 second latency is in place. 4k resolution is still a limit in this case, both for 360 cams and for delivering to viewers. For better quality ~4 second latency provides better image quality but still some interactivity can be achieved with the presenter.

There are some limitations how 360 video is rendered inside these VR devices , so some tweaking will be required there too, like I did with Z1. Will hopefully get there this year.

[HunterGeitz]

Hi, I’m currently in the process of putting my camera into dev mode. I would like if you shared the apk directly with me, if you can’t then it’s fine as the update will be out in a few days anyway.

Thanks