What each individual in the group worked on over the last week
Ekta and Mushahid:
Captured videos using Ricoh Theta camera. Each video has two spheres. The left sphere shows the rear part and the right sphere shows the front part.
Edited the captured videos in order to merge the two spheres so that they can be watched smoothly in VR headset(Oculus Rift)
Also manipulated the videos by injecting meta data to improve the quality.
Uploaded the 360 videos on youtube so as to understand how it will look to the end user. For this we had to first make our video compatible so that it can be seen in youtube.
Ivan:
Followed up with campus relation team, and they have asked for timeline of our project.
He has replied back asking for a tour before the end of this semester
A description of the accomplishments made
We were able to finish our POC of capturing perfect 360 videos and watching them in VR without any problems. Now we can start capturing videos of the campus.
Successfully uploaded 360 video on youtube, facebook etc
A description of the problems encountered (this section may be short for this week as we are still very early)
Video Quality: The quality of the video is good but we still think that it can be improved by exploring other options in the settings. Unfortunately we didn’t have the password of theta wifi and couldn’t explore the options this week.
Tripod: We need a better tripod for the camera to start capturing videos of the campus. Ricoh theta doesn’t fit properly on current tripod
Audio: The audio is perfect till the person is in a closed area and standing right in front of the camera. We may need to use a voice recorder while capturing the actual video in the campus.
Finding out the perfect height of the camera while shooting was challenging. This is important since we don’t the end user to feel uncomfortable or sick while watching the video in VR headset. For that we captured multiple videos by placing the camera at different heights.
Plans for the upcoming week
Capture videos with tour guide from campus tour department standing in front of the camera.
If audio is not upto the mark, use a voice recorder and embed it in the video
Stitch all the videos captured and have a linear video of tour guide explaining different parts of the campus.
Test out the video with tour guide in Oculus.
At least one piece of media related to your work (image, video, audio, etc)