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EVENT: RICOH THETA Live VR Lounge - in Palo Alto, May 30, 2018

Discussion in 'AR/VR (XR) Discussion' started by jcasman, May 25, 2018.

  1. jcasman

    jcasman

    Joined:
    Nov 11, 2016
    Posts:
    17
    If you're in the Bay Area in California next week, this may be of interest...

    theta360.guide presents the RICOH THETA Live VR lounge starring the RICOH THETA V 4K live streaming into an HTC Vive headset



    Sign Up Now

    Learn The Top RICOH THETA Live VR Tips
    • Camera placement and video stream orientation
    • Where to get the required drivers and software
    • Vive base station setup
    • Secrets gained over the last 2 years of live streaming the RICOH THETA
    Experience
    • Head tracking of 4K live streaming video
    • Single channel audio
    • Controller use


    Discuss
    • Development tips
      • How to display video stream inside of Unity sphere
      • How to solve “mirroring” problem of video stream
      • Single channel audio streaming
    • Future innovations
      • 4K live streaming over WiFi
      • 4K live streaming over the Internet
      • Spatial audio
    Location and Time

    Wednesday, May 30, 2018 from 5pm to 7pm
    We have our own lounge corner at the THETA V Plug-in Development workshop.
    456 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA

    Space is limited. Reserve your spot.

    Sign Up Now

    360 pictures of the space
    Gear

    We will have a VR lounge corner with gear you can check out and experience.






    • RICOH THETA V streaming 4K video
    • HTC Vive headset displaying 4K video with tracking enabled
    • Functional controllers
    • Acer Predator Helios 300 with GTX 1060 GPU
    • Laptop cooler
    • Tripods and stands
    People

    The two founders of theta360.guide, Jesse Casman and Craig Oda, will be at the lounge and workshop. They help Ricoh work with hundreds of VR/AR companies. For the last three years, they have been at the forefront of 360 VR/AR camera innovation. Stop by and discuss the future of VR.



    FAQ For Live VR Lounge

    How was this built?

    The test was done with Unity and SteamVR.


    Can I build it myself?

    Step by step instructions are here


    What other software do I need?

    If you are using Windows 10, you will need RICOH THETA V UVC driver, version 1.0.1 or higher.
    https://theta360.com/en/support/faq/c_06_v/304_1/


    How difficult is it to stream the camera into the headset?

    You need to have basic development experience. It will take a novice developer 30 minutes. The THETA V is a standard webcam texture in Unity.



    Is it easy to get the headset tracking working?

    Yes. The SteamVR assets in Unity handle all of the headset tracking and controls.



    Will the THETA V work with Oculus Rift?

    Yes. It should work, but we have not tested it.



    Do I need to do anything special for the THETA V beyond a simple webcam texture?

    Yes. there are two techniques you need to implement:
    1. To apply the texture to the inside of the sphere, you need to flip normals on the sphere.
    2. After you flip normals on the sphere, the image will be mirrored. To fix this problem, you need to adjust the scale to negative values.
    This document provides more information.


    Will this work with a mobile phone?

    It may work with Android, but we have not tested it. The THETA V streams using UVC 1.5. There appears to be an Android driver that works with UVC 1.5, but we have not tested it.

    THETA LIVE from Plannet Associate can stream the THETA V from an Android phone. Information about UVC 1.5 support on Android is available here.


    How do I stream audio to the headset?

    Single channel audio works. Spatial audio does not work. A single THETA V microphone will appear as a standard audioSource in Unity. After you grab the THETA V as the device, you can use audioSource.Play() to play the stream.


    Can I see the example script?
    github.com codetricity/theta-v-htc-vive-steamvr/blob/master/Assets/Scripts/webCamDetect.cs

    using UnityEngine;
    using System.Collections;

    public class webCamDetect : MonoBehaviour
    {
    string camName;
    public const string RICOH_DRIVER_NAME = "RICOH THETA V 4K";
    // change to "RICOH THETA V FullHD" for lower resolution
    // (and thus smaller data size)

    // Audio
    public const int THETA_V_AUDIO_NUMBER = 0;
    AudioSource audioSource;

    void Start()
    {
    WebCamDevice[] devices = WebCamTexture.devices;
    Debug.Log("Number of web cams connected: " + devices.Length);
    for (int i = 0; i < devices.Length; i++)
    {
    (This file has been truncated)


    How did you project the webcam texture to the inside of the sphere?

    I created a sphere in blender then used blender to flip the normal perspective. You can download the sphere here: github.com codetricity/theta-v-htc-vive-steamvr/blob/master/Assets/inside-sphere.blend

    version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1
    oid sha256:f64485c1189ca5f32391261a74113aa3e66baa0e1b335e4fad89f97fbe7b3010
    size 2821304

    What industries are using the THETA V with headsets?

    Large companies around the world are testing the THETA V for telepresence.
    Example industries:
    • Civil engineering
    • Industrial robotics
    • Experiential tours
    • Aerospace
    Can I Stream Wirelessly?

    Ricoh has announced WiFi 4K live streaming coming as a plug-in. Once the plug-in is released, we will look into ways to stream over WiFi.