Hi cshane! Thanks for your interest! I'm preparing to Kickstart an all-in-one 4k 3D 360 camera. Exciting stuff, but of course with any Kickstarter project it won't be ready to ship for a few months. I know a lot of people are picking up 18 Yis, and I own and love a lot of those cameras, so I'm also preparing some rigs for alternate applications of the multiple Yis - facial videogrammetry and that jumping-kick thing Trinity does in the Matrix being two of the more exciting examples. If you're looking to get into VR video right away, I would go ahead and pick up either 2 or 6 Yis and just mess around with video capture. It's a fairly small investment, and there's plenty to learn about composing, stitching, and editing VR video before committing to 18 Yis. Cheers, Jason
Hi Jason, Good to hear about your kickstarter plans! I was looking to build a 360 Google Jump type of rig but was just wondering your view on what rig you would advise.. Can you help with files / instructions how to 3d print the rig? Also seen new Git2 actioncam from Gitup and was interested on your view if it would be much better (is 2xprice of Xiaomi Y2?
The big advantage of the Google Jump rig is the ability to use their automated stiching processor. I don't believe they've given any indication as to whether people who 3D print their own rigs will be licensed to use the Google autostitcher. That said, it's a fine rig if you don't care about poles (zenith/nadir) or seams. I'd check out some Jump videos and see what you think. If you want to manually remove your seams (what I do for seamless 3d 360) you're better off with a stereo-pair based rig, since you'll have half as many seams. 16 * 2 = 32 seams for the Jump rig, which is way too many to manually remove. The way I see it, the only upgrade from the Xiaomi Yi for VR is the GoPro3+ Black, because it can be genlocked. The GoPro4 is kinda-sorta an option, but I'd really hold off there until the 4+Black, which is likely to be genlockable.
Jason, as you probably know: Hero 4 is possible to genlock by now. Keep up the great project