I am looking for a 360 degree (omnidirectional) camera that can be interfaced with ROS such that I can get the omnidirectional livestream in ROS. Which version of the Ricoh Theta camera does this? I know that there are various packages available for Ricoh Theta S that can do this, however the resolution is not as great as the Z1.
The S is motionJPEG. The V and Z1 are UVC.
It is more involved to stream with the V and Z1 to Linux. ROS Noetic Ninjemys and Foxy Fitzroy on Ubuntu 20.04 seem to work.
ROS based on 16.04 may not work easily. If your ROS is based on Ubuntu 18.04 or 20.04, there is a reasonable path forward. Review the information at the link below.
RICOH THETA360.guide Independent developer community
You can compile the libuvc and v4l2loopback prior to buying the camera to test some software components.
If it seems like it will work, then buy the camera from a place with a return policy in case you have problems with things like the graphics card compatibility with v4l2loopback and gstreamer.
Likely worth it to go for it if your application is on 18.04 or 20.04, but I would be hesitant if you need support for 16.04.