RICOH THETA V Plug-in Microconference - San Francisco - Thurs, Aug 30, evening

Great, you and your +1 are very welcome. See you next week!

I would like to attend and have a Theta360.

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Thanks, Kevin. Looking forward to meeting face-to-face.

Kevin, do you have a V? Or an S?

Unfortunately, I still have the Theta360 S. :frowning:

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Kevin,

Quite a few cool things you can do with an S and the open API. The A-Frame work you mentioned has a ton of possibilities. What are you building?

In case you haven’t seen, here’s a couple of articles on the theta360.guide site:

Basics: Easily Create a 360 Gallery For RICOH THETA with A-Frame
Using with Oculus Go: HowTo: Viewing 360° Video in Real-Time from THETA V with Oculus Go Browser

Have you worked with Android at all? If you’re interested in trying out the V, I can arrange a loaner so you can get a real taste of it.

Jesse

Thanks. I’ll be there.

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Great, Stephan, looking forward to seeing you there! It’s been a little while. Loved your hack at TechCrunch DISRUPT adding filters to THETA video. Still remember you guys staying up late and coming up with the snowflakes on the Bay Bridge video. Cool stuff.

Would like to attend. +1

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Hey @sanilf1, great, we’ve got you on the list! May I ask, do you have Android experience? Have you used a THETA before? Any details appreciated (though not required).

@jcasman I have a theta s and have some android experience.

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Excellent, the THETA S does a lot of cool things. You can access the open API. We’ll be able to show you how the V is different and how you can make more out of it.

How many THETA V units will be available for developers to use during the workshop? Are you assigning the THETA V units prior to the person showing up? Or, will they be distributed at the time of the workshop?

I need the two units I am borrowing for the demo station.

This is the draft of the curriculum for the workshop.

SF-Workshop-Tutorial-Dual-Fisheye Still Image.pdf (3.5 MB)

This is the draft of the GitHub repository for the curriculum that can be opened in Android Studio. Note that there are four branches to the repository below. People will start with the master branch and progress to the 7-image branch. The shutter-speed branch and the juantonto branch are for reference after the workshop.

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This time, I’m especially interested in the ability to add Android apps directly onto the camera itself. Last time, we didn’t have that.

We’re definitely covering this. Please bring a laptop with Android Studio installed. If you are ambitious, feel free to download and open this Android Studio project and see if you can build it. We’ll cover that step in the workshop, so no advanced preparation needed.

It would be useful to install Android Studio prior to the event because it is a large download and me take several minutes to install during the workshop.

Once you build the Android package for the camera, we’ll install it with the standard adb install package.apk directly into the camera. You’ll be able to use the app during the workshop. We’ll then modify the application for your specific requirements.

You may be able to add still image watermarks or decoration (like a company icon) directly to the image taken by the camera. This might be good for an online magazine or photographer that wants to give themselves credit.

If there’s Android code to add effects or snowflakes, we can try it, possibly even prior to the workshop.

Attendees of the workshop will leave with a plug-in that can take 7 images in dual-fisheye that has different exposure compensation values.

I’d like to encourage people to consider finishing the plug-in and submitting it to the THETA Store.

There are three use cases that users are asking for right now:

  1. HDRI files for visual effects industry to record lighting data for 3D modelling
  2. HDRI files for tone mapping
  3. timelapse with 1 second intervals instead of 4 with the THETA V

The use case we have the most feedback on is the use of HDRI files for the VFX industry.

Current feedback on product requirements:

  • 7 to 13 images
  • 1/25000 second to 1/2 second shutter speed range

Plug-in Versions

You can make a very easy plug-in that just does bracketing or take up the challenge of stitching the images internally and merging into an HDRI file or tone mapped image.

version difficulty usage
bracket only easy post-production workflow to stitch images and then convert to HDR
timelapse easy post production workflow to stitch images and then convert to HDR
stitch internally moderate must save lens parameter information to camera one time, then convert to HDR post production
create HDR file inside camera difficult must first stitch all images, then convert to HDR inside camera

Stitching

Ichi Hirota has a commercial stitching library and application on Android phones. You may be able to license the library for use inside the camera. Other stitching libraries are available, but require work. You need a way to manually adjust for lens distortion then save the parameters inside the camera.

HDR

  • Android HDR might be a good starting point
  • This student paper might also be interesting.
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I will be there for the event August 30

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Excellent, see you in a couple hours!