Facebook introduces Surround 360, an open-source 360-degree video camera

Social networking giant Facebook has introduced its own 360-degree stereoscopic 3D video camera dubbed Facebook Surround 360 at the F8 developer conference at Fort Mason in San Francisco, California.

What Facebook revealed was a reference design for high-end video capturing system, for which it will release as an open-source project including camera design and stitching code on GitHub this summer. 

The Surround 360 has a disk-shaped spaceship-like design  that has 17 evenly spaced 4-megapixel  lenses that can shoot videos in 4K, 6K and 8K. It uses the 17 lenses to capture images and produce a 360-degree spherical video for viewing in VR headsets like Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, and on smartphones, tablets and PCs (monoscopic).

The Surround 360 camera also has a single fish-eye camera installed on top and two on the bottom, so that there won't be any holes in the image. It also has its own web-based software, which can be used to capture images and live action footages in 360-degree.

Facebook said that the Surround 360 is the best commercial VR camera ever created and costs $30,000 to buy the parts necessary to build it.

Kaiser Bey

Kaiser is a tech enthusiast who likes to write, read and talk about tech. He dreams of going to Mars and never come back. We hope that you find his posts on AndroGuider helpful and informative