Facebook unveils its ‘Surround 360’ open source video camera

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In a bid to make its VR content and News Feed turn 360 degree, Facebook has invented its own virtual reality camera that shoots high class 360 degree videos in 8k resolution. At F8, Facebook unveiled its Surround 360 camera that looks like a flying saucer on a stick and boasts a 3D VR rig of 17-lens.

This open source video camera has 17 4-megapixel lenses that can shoot with a resolution of up to 8k. The rig of the video camera is equipped with 14 wide angle shooters, along with 1 fish-eye camera on the top and 2 of them at the bottom. Besides this, it is equipped with web-based software.

Facebook has kept the source of Surround 360 open, so that people can build their own Surround 360 video camera and start shooting with it. Instead of selling this amazing, beautiful video camera, Facebook has decided to put its video stitching algorithms and hardware designs on Github later this summer.

With its rendering and stitching software, users can produce this camera in much less time, while stitching the images together in just one video with the help of its algorithm. Additionally, artists can get relieved of the several weeks of manual work that they have to do now.

You can buy all the components of Surround 360 online for $30,000. The post-production effort required in building Surround 360 is almost zero, unlike other VR rigs, meaning that you can build it with ease as well as quickly. The company hopes that artists and content producers will create much more 360 degree videos with Surround 360 for the virtual reality niche.