360 Degree Photos - FrequencyCast Transcript
In FrequencyCast Show 103, we look at two ways to take impressive 360 degree images from your smartphone with Google Photo Sphere and BubblePod.
Listen to, or download, FrequencyCast Show 103 (30 mins) |
360 Degree Photos:
Transcript from Show 103 - A look at panaoramic 360 degree photos
Continues from 3D Printing Transcript
Moving on, we're going to talk about 360 degree photos now, with a special announcement from the guys at Google. Have you ever done any 360 panoramic photo stuff?
Kelly:
I've done a few, but not a lot, to be honest.
Pete:
Well, what we're going to take a look at now is this lovely new app that has just been released for the iPhone. It's been out on Android for a while, but it's just come out for the iPhone, and this is called Google Photo Sphere. Now, you're familiar with Google Maps, and Google Streetmaps?
Kelly:
Yeah, of course.
Pete:
This lets you create your own. Have a little look at this. This is one I prepared earlier, so you basically get your finger on here, and you can whizz around, and see my office in 3D – you can scroll up, scroll down, just the same as Google Streetmaps. How cool's that?
Kelly:
I love that. That's absolutely amazing, and that would help me so much, when I get lost.
Pete:
What this does is, it basically stitches together photos, so you take a series of photos, and you click away, and it will build up a photo image, based on what you're clicking, so we can give this a little try now. Let's just do it in the studio here. So you have to line up the dots in the screen, like this. It stitches them all together, so there's a little man there, stitching Photosphere together, and it joins up all the edges for you, and without too much hassle, we should have got a nice, little photo. Let's just have a little look.
Kelly:
Oh, amazing!
Pete:
Now of course, we have looked at this kind of stuff before with a gentleman I think you fell in love with, who's all about the 360 photo, and who was that?
Kelly:
Oh I know – BubblePix. You've just got to love them, haven't you?
Pete:
Good old Tom Lawton. Now, you'll remember last time we met him, he had just started a Kickstarter campaign for his new version of a thing that lets you do 360 photos, and we've got one.
Kelly:
Have we?
Pete:
Hot off the press from Kickstarter, let me show you this little baby.
Kelly:
A BubblePod.
Pete:
There you go, go on – pop it open. Isn't that good? That's one of the very first ones. It's got a little rubber bit on the top, which you drop your phone in. It's completely clockwork, so just wind that up for me, and when you press the button ...
Kelly:
Amazing!
Pete:
And when we spoke to Tom, we weren't allowed to talk about this, do you remember? We were under a strict embargo, but now we're not, because it's out. So shall we hear from the man himself, Mr Lawton?
Kelly:
Oh, let's!
Tom:
What I've done is, I've created a little product which I call the BubblePod. Now, the BubblePod takes any phone that can run an Android app, or an iOS app, or even on a BlackBerry 10. You slip it on the top, it's got like a squeezy rubber bit, so it really doesn't matter what the shape of that phone is, it'll even take an iPod Touch. You put it into this little clockwork timetable, that's probably the size of – actually, I keep telling people it's the size of a tub of Sex Wax, but then some people don't know what Sex Wax is, and that's a surfer, kind of ...
Pete:
Kelly? – Sex Wax?
Kelly:
No, it sounds hilarious!
Tom:
If you're a surfer, you'll know exactly what Sex Wax is. If you're not, it's a little bit smaller than a hockey puck.
Pete:
Okay, fair enough – I've heard of that.
Tom:
Yeah, yeah, you've heard of that, that's right. So it's this funky little thing, you put your phone in it, you wind it up 360. It then works with our special app, that's a little bit better than the iOS panorama one, and you release the BubblePod. It rotates through 360 degrees in well under a minute – I'm talking about 40 seconds, and we're getting it optimised exactly right now for the right lighting conditions. So in 40 seconds, you get the most incredible resolution still 360 degree image.
Pete:
What sort of resolution are we talking?
Tom:
We're talking 12,500 pixels by about 2,500 pixels, so we're talking the kind of image that you could blow up as big as a billboard, if you wanted to – it's huge. I mean, the shot I've got here behind me is shot with the BubblePod, and the resolution is sublime, so we've already had professional panoramic photographers coming to us, and they're kind of disgruntled, because they've bought some of these pieces of kit, these special rigs for their DSLRs, that are costing them thousands of pounds, and we're here with a product that's going to cost around about £20, and it does the same. In fact, it does it a little bit better, because it does it so much quicker, and it's that little bit smaller, so it lends itself to being put in all sorts of different environments.
Now, there's a couple of sweet features that I've added. It's got a flat base on it, you've got a little rubber base on it, so it'll sit on a wall, it will sit wherever you might want to take your panorama.
Pete:
And I can see at the bottom, it's got a tripod thread there, so it goes on a tripod.
Tom:
Absolutely, so it goes on a tripod, as you'd want it to, so if you're an estate agent, or you want to capture a space, you're a quantity surveyor, you can mount it, you can capture the world around you, but at a professional grade. There's a little conical recess, and some rubbery bits on the bottom, and as I say, it's quite small, and it allows itself to be in unusual places. This is designed so it fits on the top of a wine bottle.
Pete:
Ah, okay!
Tom:
Because, think of that scenario where you and your best friends, or your family, are sat around the dinner table. So we've put the BubblePod in the middle of the table, in the wine bottle, and you get the most perfect, high-resolution panorama, of everybody. The results speak for themselves, and this is all about full-screen bubbles.
Pete:
Do you have to stay fairly still, while it's doing the table?
Tom:
It's not like a BubbleScope. BubbleScope is all about, one shot gets everything in that moment, so this is different. With the BubbleScope, you've got the spontaneity, and it's kind of always happening, and you can get the dynamic scene, that's brilliant, but this is about full-screen, zoomable bubbles, that you can get right in. You can see the freckles on your niece's face, and all the little details in the shot, and so we're really excited about this product.
Pete:
Excellent, right, well we shall look forward to it. What is it the size of again, Kelly?
Kelly:
Sex Wax?
Tom:
Sex Wax, exactly. Now, I've got listeners that are googling Sex Wax, and I'm imagining that they're getting varied results.
Pete:
So there you go, this is a lovely, elegant solution. It's designed to fit in a wine bottle, and record the people sitting around your dinner table, or out in a barbecue in the garden, or whatever else. There is only one problem with both this solution and the Google Photosphere solution, which is, you do need a special app that lets you navigate around it, so you can't just like email a photo to someone without them having the app at the other end. This is the future, where you go out somewhere, you take a photo, and it's fully immersive. You can look behind you, above you, below you, and change the angles round. It's just so nice, doing it.
Kelly:
I agree, but it does make me sad that everybody has to be signed up in order to enjoy a picture.
Pete:
Google Streetmaps has changed the way we look at streetmaps. You don't look at a two-dimensional photo any more. You do want to be able to scan next door and up, so that's how it's going to be, and Google's released a tool to let you do it.
Kelly:
Well, I love it, don't get me wrong – I do love it. I just, I begrudge spending any extra money, you know what I'm like.
Pete:
So, very interesting, and the photo stitching thing is particularly good, so FrequencyCasters, if you fancy sending us a 360 of where you are, we would love to see it. Drop us a line via the website.
Listen to, or download, FrequencyCast Show 103 (30 mins) |
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