原创 A little beauty called Panopticam

As you are surely aware (unless you've been living under a rock), I am enamoured with things like Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (in the form of games like Obduction and headsets like the Oculus Rift).

Well, I just received a message from my chum Rich Quinnell, who is the Editor in Chief over at IoT World. In his email, Rich said "Hi Max, I thought you might like to take a look at this Panopticam 360-degree camera."

 

This little beauty -- which is the work of a company called Figure Digital -- is a spherical device adorned with 36 cameras. Using this little scamp, you could take totally immersive "surround" images that could be viewed using the Oculus Rift.

Suppose we take this one step further -- shoot an entire film using a Panopticam and then watch it using an Oculus Rift. In this case, you could be standing in the middle of the room tilting your head up and down or turning it left or right (or turning your body completely around) to see something completely different. In fact, you could watch the same film over and over again looking in different directions each time.

Actually, knowing how modern films require so much in the way of special effects and large numbers of lighting and sound technicians and so forth, I'm not sure how well this would work for something like an action movie. On the other hand, I can really envisage the most amazing educational videos taking you to places like the Great Pyramid in Egypt. And I can also envisage the most amazing computer games...

How about you? What do you think would be a good use for the Panopticam?