3d 360 panoramas for SAMSUNG Gear VR

[3LP]

All right,
All that cubemap issue on oculus and windows/ios made me upset so I came up with a semi automated solution to create KRPano pano from cubemaps.

I took few exemples of cubemaps (18k maps) that I found and added them to this POC :

http://wip.sbrusse.com/vtour_Cube/

It's working fine on my computer and on my iphone, so I guess it needs to be tested my others, but this is finally a solid way to view cubemaps IMO.
Watch in hand it take me 2-3 min to convert a cubemap into KRPano now.

Hope you like it.

Stan

[fco3d]

6x1 cube looks significantly better and doesn't feature any noticeable distortion, he's right. spherical has a ton of pinching and distortion top and bottom.

Thanks for the answer Neil.
I also agree that rendering cubes will manage better the antialising and over all pixel creation, my question was oriented to the parallax effect. I guess they are about the same, but more precise with the cube method.

The main problem for me is how you do post production in those images. I know with KR pano you can change from spherical to cube, but wonder if we lose some quality. I have not noticed difference though, except sometimes some seams appear.

Regarding comparison of Samsung VR and Oculus, we have both, yes it feel more comfortable the gear VR, but I guess is because you don't have to deal with the cables, besides the resolution of the Galaxy phone is double what the Rift has. So you see the difference, now with the Rift you can walk through scenes with more complexity than with the Gear VR, it is simple to understand because you are running from a PC with a way better hardware than a Phone.
It is impressive thou what a Phone can deliver, if the images/videos are prepared correctly.
I am pretty sure there is a market for both of them for a long time.
Also doing static panoramas VS walk through, both of them have advantages.

[werticus]

I've got this working on the iphone 5... I have two types of cheap viewer, a plastic one and a cardboard one. The settings needed to use each is different took me a bit of trail and error to get to work, the cardboard needed cardboard A mode, with 72mm ipd, but the view feels very 'tall' and narrow, not at all a wide view, visible pixels and not very immersive but it 'works'.

The $15 plastic one which felt better to use because it is not a $2 piece of card, has a wider field of view than the iphone so you can see the frame of the phone, but it also 'works' with cardboard mode B and a 54mm ipd, no visible pixels.

Neither is very mind blowing, compared to a DK2 so I think it is probably time to get a new phone and a gear vr sounds like the way to go with a galaxy 6 or is a Note better (same res but larger?

I know someone with an iphone 6 + actually I'll try that first to see if it is a bigger screen that i want or a better goggle.

I've noticed that KR Pano has not been updated since early august (not a good sign) and I also noticed that safari on the iphone does not minimise it's UI while looking at a pano, which it normally does automatically while surfing normally.

[3LP]

I know with KR pano you can change from spherical to cube, but wonder if we lose some quality. I have not noticed difference though, except sometimes some seams appear.

Do you seems in the proof of concept I did just one post above?
This is a cube map saved straight away for KRPano, so it's not converted from sphere to cube, meaning the quality is at his maximum.

Stan

[3LP]

I've noticed that KR Pano has not been updated since early august (not a good sign) and I also noticed that safari on the iphone does not minimise it's UI while looking at a pano, which it normally does automatically while surfing normally.

I have a plastic one at 20$ that runs with my iphone and the quality is pretty amazing.
Do you have the UI not disappearing on the version I post above? Because on my iPhone it works. iOS 8

Stan

[werticus]

3LP, no your UI does not disappear for me either, i might try another web browser, this is safari on the latest ios 9.something

Also it looks like you forgot to edit your xml properly as there is two copies of each scene instead of the one...

See Daniel Brew's post here:

http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...Gear-VR/page16

step 7,8,9 to fix that.

[fraggle]

Stan, that's a bit confusing. You are talking about Occulus and then about computer and about Iphone! But the result are completly different as the first one display 3D image, while the other display 2D unless you used third party glasses.
Occulus is a "stand alone" headset. The display, the glass and the player came all together. You can see the tour in 3D.
Computer: The player is the a web browser, looking at your screen you can't see it in 3D. So basically it is a panorama.
Iphone: The player is the web browser, looking at your screen you can't see it in 3D.
Iphone: Adding a third party glasses, you can see the 3D by loading a different tour done with stereoscopic render.

Thanks to confirmed.

All right,
All that cubemap issue on oculus and windows/ios made me upset so I came up with a semi automated solution to create KRPano pano from cubemaps.

I took few exemples of cubemaps (18k maps) that I found and added them to this POC :

http://wip.sbrusse.com/vtour_Cube/

It's working fine on my computer and on my iphone, so I guess it needs to be tested my others, but this is finally a solid way to view cubemaps IMO.
Watch in hand it take me 2-3 min to convert a cubemap into KRPano now.

Hope you like it.

Stan

[3LP]

Hey,

@werticus :

The UI isn't supposed to disappear completely when VR mode isn't enabled, this is intentionnal as you still need to have access naviguate to the next scene.
The UI can be hidden and made more discrete, either in portrait or LS mode :

Portrait :

LS:


VR Mode :


Or are you referring to the iOS UI? If so then it's something else, I can as Klaus if it's possible to have a full screen pano even when held as portrait, would that fix it?

@fraggle
Sorry if it's a bit confusing
I mentioned oculus on computer because the oculus as opposed to the gear VR, needs as computer to run (and most of the time, it's on windows)

All those panos are stereo, if VR mode is enabled.
This tour is supposed to work on everything : Oculus, computer, iPhone with and without third party glasses and in theory gear VR (I haven't tested this)

Not sure what you're referring to about dual scenes in the pano.
Where do you see that there are two of the same scene in the UI? :

The xml is specially formatted to work with stereo, maybe that's what you're referring to?

Stan

[fraggle]

Hey,
Not sure what you're referring to about dual scenes in the pano.
Where do you see that there are two of the same scene in the UI? :
Stan

All the demo and article show up images divided in left and right. SO I'm referring to this: https://www.google.fr/search?q=3D+oc...q=oculus+image

[3LP]

yep, that's when VR mode is enabled.
do you have a headset like oculus at your disposal? Works out of the box with the oculus runtime 0.8 and chrome beta once you push on the goggle icone.
if you don't have a headset, it will run a fake VR mode so you can still see it on your screen

on iOS, just tilt your phone in landscaping and it enables the VR mode automatically

Was that it?

Stan

[fraggle]

yep, that's when VR mode is enabled.
do you have a headset like oculus at your disposal? Works out of the box with the oculus runtime 0.8 and chrome beta once you push on the goggle icone.
if you don't have a headset, it will run a fake VR mode so you can still see it on your screen

on iOS, just tilt your phone in landscaping and it enables the VR mode automatically

Was that it?

Stan

Thanks, actually I do make 3D pano using Pano2Vr 5 and I'm about to buy one of this headset to try the VR mode.
I tried once the Occulus in June 2015 and the experience was really disappointing. Poor quality, lot of lag... and I was seek after 30 s.
Are you client not reluctant at putting such a big headset on them? Are they not seek?
What's your client feedback?

[3LP]

Our client feedback is that they are really happy and find it amazing.

I think it's all about how you configure it.
A bad eye distance is the worst and make you seek really quickly.
The other thing is how you move in the scene, if you walk straight in the "game" (project) but move your head left right while going forward on your joystick, it will make your head spin.
Another mayor point is the speed at which you walk in the 3d envirement, I tend to push the settings to go quickly from one side to the other in our project level, after that I didn't put the goggle on for two days as I was gonna trow up just by seeing the headset.
It's a fine balance of a lot of details/settings
But generally speaking, static stereo pano are working pretty well as you only move in orbit mode, and that's way easier to handle.

Stan

[werticus]

3LP, i am talking about the safari UI not minimising. It happens for me on your work and my work.

[3LP]

Sorry still don't really get it, would you be kind enough to post a screenshot of your issue please

Thanks

[werticus]

The book mark, tabs, address bar, back and forward buttons all remain on screen for me. Which is the UI of safari. You don't need a screenshot for that :P