Facebook, the reputed social media giant, has decided to sign a strategic alliance with RED – the U.S. based manufacturer of digital cinema cameras, to create a virtual reality camera for capturing high-resolution imagery in 6DoF (six degrees of freedom). The move apparently is targeted at helping camera makers to physically develop a product and by extension, help other filmmakers produce VR content, similar to Surround 360.
For the record, in 2016, Facebook had incidentally launched Surround 360, a seventeen-camera array created to capture the videos in 3600 in a VR environment. The motive behind the camera production was to help the players across the consumer tech manufacturing & industrial sectors.
Brian Cabral, a director of engineering at Facebook in the field of computational photography, has stated that a year back the firm set out in search for a hardware partner to help it deliver the new VR technology. He further announced that the social networking site required high image quality along with the workflow that will allow the image developers to capture photography as well as video.
It has been speculated that the software will integrate all the image features and help in improving the VR-experiences of the users.
Reportedly, last year, Surround 360 developers unleashed a new version of the VR camera design with a twenty-four-camera array along with the lighter six-camera array prototype. The innovative cameras had the ability of capturing 8K videos along with the contents across six degrees of freedom. Apparently, it has been projected to help users increase the content quality of VR videos by allowing them to move naturally across the overall virtual environment.
The Facebook-Red alliance is likely to help the social media giant propel high-end videos in the vicinity of the mainstream. A key official of Facebook has announced that the new camera is developed for professional storytellers to effectively assist them in their work. As per analysts, the alliance will open up new opportunities for virtual reality technology in the future.