Throwable 36-Camera Ball Nearly Ready To Toss 68
An anonymous reader writes "About 2 years ago, Jonas Pfeil, created a Throwable Panorama Ball: A rugged, grapefruit-sized ball with 36 fixed-focus, 2-megapixel digital camera sensors that capture simultaneously when thrown in the air, creating a full spherical panorama of the surrounding scene. Now, an Indiegogo campaign aims to produce the the camera (Now known as Panono) available for about $500. The quality of the sample images is impressive: the resolution is quite good and most importantly, the stitching artifacts are hardly visible."
Throwing is one thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Will it survive more than 1 hard landing
Expensive for a 1 shot device
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Expensive period.
Re: Throwing is one thing (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, please. Throw that smartphone as hard as you can.
Re: Throwing is one thing (Score:1)
I can think of quite a few very usefull applications for one of those, many of which certainly couldn't be done with a smartphone.
Most of them are questionable either ethically or legally, but useful nonetheless. I can also think of a few other pretty cool and mostly inacuous uses for one.
I'm sure if you use your imagination you could guess some of them :)
Online publishing / Possible use (Score:2)
Uh... Facebook, Instagram, Picasa, Tumblr, Twitter, E-mail or other photo albums/publishing service can actually already be used. The ball simply connects wirelessly [panono.com] to the users' smartphone (like for example the Go Pro cameras do already), the user then forwards the picture to the destination of choosing. That's the standard workflow of several other current cameras (Go Pro, as mentionned)
And wait for further product iteration to happen and the price will lower as production scale increases.
I can already s
Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Better hope Indiegogo likes your project or it will get buried and rendered invisible by about day three.
You have to get it noticed by other websites of course. Like Slashdot, for instance.
Crowdfunding sites do absolutely nothing to help indie projects get off the ground. They collect their cut while they make rude gestures, and that's it.
Crowdfunding sites are about the only reason why I pay those projects in the first place. If it's not on kickstarter or on indiegogo, your chances of getting my money are very close to 0.
Frankly, I can't understand why anyone uses those sites. They're going to do all the work themselves. Why not keep all the money?
For the project starter, it offers a way to host the information, communicate with contributors, and receive money. All those things take time to do on your own, and the people doing the project would rather spend time on it, and not on setting up Apache, web sites, and working out how to deal with card payments.
For the contributor, it offers a filter that rejects the obvious crap. Also provides an intermediary that helps me waste less of my money. If a random project needs $100K to be viable and I donate through paypal, if they only make $10K, I can't really expect to get my money back. On kickstarter, that is assured.
On the project's own site, they control the interaction. They can ignore annoying questions and pretend everything is going great. On sites like kickstarter and indiegogo they can't do that, and it works as a great indicator to potential contributors about whether there's anything fishy about the project.
And I also don't believe for one fucking second that a bunch of clowns can put up a web page and raise $250,000 for a board game in four weeks. The fragrance coming off that shit makes my scam alarm strip naked and run into traffic.
And that's precisely why kickstarter and indiegogo are so awesome. You see what the project wants upfront. You lose no money if the required amount is not reached. People digging into the details of the project can post about it, and you can read their warnings.
There is still considerable risk of course, but so far I've not seen anything better than this. It's certainly loads better than to just send money through paypal to some random person.
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Ask yourself this question: same guys that raise $250k on Kickstarter for a board game sell that board game on their own web site and make jack shit. Why?
Because of the reasons outlined in my previous post, and that I repeat below.
Kickstarter adds nothing to the project. Why does the cash register ring only on Kickstarter but not on the project's own web site?
If you're unable to read, or to comprehend what is written, what's the point of asking? I'll answer again, in case it sinks in this time: because kickstarter doesn't allow obviously bad projects, doesn't take my money if the project doesn't make enough, and isn't under the control of the project's owner, allowing tricky questions to remain visible to potential donors.
On the project's own site, none of those things are assured. Ther
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Do you really want me to make a list of all the bullshit projects that have shown up on Kickstarter in the last few months?
Sure, if it makes you happy.
No guarantee that a successful project will ship anything either.
According to the updates and comments of the project you linked, it shipped. Tsk.
$700,000 for this?
Well, when 5000 people buy something in the ~$100 and above dollar range, yes, the result is a lot of money.
What are you whining about, are you jealous?
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And that's precisely why kickstarter and indiegogo are so awesome. You see what the project wants upfront. You lose no money if the required amount is not reached. People digging into the details of the project can post about it, and you can read their warnings.
Indiegogo has a slightly slimier feeling option on their projects where the project gets to keep the money regardless of whether they meet their funding goal or not. If you are supporting a project on Indiegogo and this matters to you, be sure to check out the conditions on funding the project.
From Indiegogo's FAQ [indiegogo.com].
What if I don't reach my funding goal? If your campaign is set up as Flexible Funding, you will be able to keep the funds you raise, even if you don't meet your goal. If your campaign is set up as Fixed Funding, all contributions will be returned to your funders if you do not meet your goal. Flexible Funding campaigns that meet their goal are only charged 4% as our platform fee, whereas campaigns that do not meet their goal are charged 9%.
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"If a random project needs $100K to be viable and I donate through paypal, if they only make $10K, I can't really expect to get my money back. On kickstarter, that is assured."
"You lose no money if the required amount is not reached."
Confused much?
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No, you are. I'm talking about donations directly to a project through paypal, without an intermediary like kickstarter that offters the "money back" guarantee.
Great, new selfies (Score:5, Funny)
All sorts of mischief will ensue from this. Thought it was bad enough guys taking cell phone pictures of girls' asses in line at McDonald's? How about ball-toss down-the-blouse shots? How about tossing it over fence level at your topless sunbathing neighbor?
Where do I get one?
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Where do I get one?
All I thought of when I saw the title was the laser mapping spheres from Prometheus. Then I read (I swear.. well, at least tfs) and decided that the only appropriate use for this would be to mount it on an autonomous quad with lte and wifi.. and send it to the nude beaches.. Ahh I always love the slashvertising before Christmas, especially when accompanied by the warm thunk of camera grenades on the sand..
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My thought was rolling it towards girls in short skirts.
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DROP IT! DROP IT NOW! {Bang!} {Bang!} (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's New York, NY not NYC, NY. NYC is all five boroughs where New York, NY is specifically Manhattan.
Anyway, considering all of the weird shit the NYPD has to deal with on a daily basis I really don't see this being a problem. Two guys throwing a plastic ball around Times Square would be nothing, especially since the device seems to be targeted at hipsters and computer geeks. Plus, no one in NYC gets shot for being mistaken as a suicide bomber, it's only when you're mistaken for having a gun and that's not
What good is it? (Score:2, Interesting)
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While a novel concept,
360 degree panoramas have been around for 20+ years - this is just a new way of capturing them (and from previously inaccessible locations, such as 20 feet in the air).
You make it sound like you've never seen one - or haven't understood how the ball is being used.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I made the same mistake as him from reading the summary: I thought the ball was taking some sort of video of being tossed around, which doesn't sound all that interesting. After going to the project's site, I realized it's taking 4 steradian panoramas at the height of the ball's arc, giving the entire field of view from that point (including up and down).
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I have a friend who will want one; she uses them for 3D rendering. Conventional panorama capture can have problems, like object and cloud movement, while the photos are being taken; this eliminates the issue.
I'd love to order one, but I have serious trust issues with Paypal and am not going to sign up just to join the campaign. I'll have to wait until it goes retail. Here's hopes the campaign succeeds!
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I thought of that too - I don't know if something that's still done, but a lighting map for an environment can be obtained by taking a shot of a smooth mirrored ball - instant almost 360 degree map of the room's lighting (they did/do it on Doctor Who, dontchaknow). This ball could be a higher resolution, but equally instant, method.
Goes great with Oculus Rift... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Goes great with Oculus Rift... (Score:1)
Check out Microsoft's photosynth...not the panoramas, but the "synths" (I think they are calling them). They'll take images of the same location, from all different angles and zoom levels, find the matching points, and skew them to fit together. There was even a mode where they showed only the matching points, which for something with a ton of picturesâ"say the flickr archive of the Colosseumâ"was a 3D-like model. Very cool.
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Cloud Rendering (Score:3)
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I'd be tempted to get one if the stitching algorithm could be run locally instead of on their cloud.
You can get the single images from the camera and stitch with a third party tool if you like! You can also download the raw data/single images from the cloud at any time. Of course you can also export the stitched images. Cheers, Jonas
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You can get the single images from the camera and stitch with a third party tool if you like!
Such as Hugin [sourceforge.net].
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Great idea, but for one small problem (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll always have some yutz in the middle of your photo staring up at the camera with his hands in the air.
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Na, you could just practice tossing it up without looking. Bigger questions: Do you have to catch it or is it rugged enough to land on the ground (more than once)? Will it float? If it is at all waterproof, I just might get one to float out in the water - at least some pics would be submerged and some above the water. That would be cool. I'd really love it if it were more or less bear proof, but from TFA it doesn't appear that armored.
Come on guys, more details....
Hmm... Must. Resist....
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Na, you could just practice tossing it up without looking.
Yep, that works. See here :) http://www.panono.com/v/1156/ [panono.com]
It is built to withstand many drops (it's a throwable camera after all). Not waterproof for the moment but should withstand a few drops of rain. Being able to go diving with it is on our wish list!
Kind regards,
Jonas
Re: (Score:3)
Thanks for the info. Got one on order. You all should work on a ruggedized military / police version - there is likely a big market for that sort of thing. Look at the GoPro. Bonus points for adding a tear gas canister or a launcher frame for Estes rocket engines.
So many possibilities.....
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Which is why Google Street View has been such an abject failure. It is not just art. There are other reasons to take a photograph.
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What the hell, +5 Insightful? I was going for funny.
"produce the the camera" (Score:2)
Aw, when writing it's is so easy to
to do this.
http://customerinnovations.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/paris-in-the-the-spring.jpg [wordpress.com]
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Goddammit. I opened the link in a new tab, having only briefly skimmed your post, and when I finally got around to the tab, stared at the image, read the words, saw nothing wrong, and wondered why you'd posted it.
Then I finally came back, read the title, looked again at the image, and all clicked into place.
And then I read the post text properly. Curse you!
Light Field (Score:2)
Cannot wait to see what is possible when they do that with these cameras: https://www.lytro.com/camera/ [lytro.com]
Panono climbing "expedition" ;) (Score:1)
And the next Google Mapping project is... (Score:2)
Throwable.. blah (Score:2)
Wake me up when it is pitch-able, hit-able and the size of a baseball. It would make our "national pastime" exciting to watch.
It might actually be easier to essentially embed this in a clear plastic soccer ball. You'd want to add a radio tx to stream the images out so you could have a "ball-cam" in the live feed. Maybe instant replay would be good enugh. With a spinning ball you'd need one hell of a fast shutter to cut out the blur.
Kernel of a good idea worth a big pile of cash but they have a long way