http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/01/world/haiti.360/index.html?hpt=C1


(note: this is in the RIGHT section)

1/23/2010 2:04:39 PM

Is that a GPS being held out the left side of the vehicle?

1/23/2010 2:10:16 PM

the driver of that car is a douche face

1/23/2010 2:12:59 PM

no, he's pretty awesome

1/23/2010 2:22:00 PM

not really - he drove into oncoming traffic just to get ahead in a traffic jam, thereby unnecessarily risking other peoples lives for no other reason than to make a cool video for the website.

1/23/2010 2:22:49 PM

Have you never driven in another country?

Have you never driven in a non-first world country?

1/23/2010 2:25:32 PM

i didn't see any of the idling cars pulling a stunt like that.

1/23/2010 2:27:57 PM

I didn't ask what the idling cars were doing.

1/23/2010 2:30:37 PM

People who have never been anywhere get quite prissy when they go to other countries

guess he didnt notice the truck driving on the sidewalk going the other way earlier in the video

[Edited on January 23, 2010 at 2:35 PM. Reason : obviusly the drive was a local, as well]

1/23/2010 2:34:55 PM

I don't think the tech behind this would be very complicated at all - just install a few cameras with overlapping fields of view and stitch the feeds together with software. The software already exists to stitch together still images and the videos are essentially just a series of jpgs. Perhaps it might be necessary to ensure that the frames of each video camera are being captured at the same time, but I doubt it. Seems that they could just use some averaging when they created the new 360 frame.

1/23/2010 2:36:43 PM

its google streetview

1/23/2010 3:04:26 PM

^^ stop talking

1/23/2010 3:09:27 PM

its definitely not google streetview

1/23/2010 3:20:55 PM

^^

1/23/2010 4:57:49 PM

Well, if Tech Talk is the correct section, then presumably we should discuss the technical aspects of this video. While it is neat, I do not find the tech behind this video to be all that groundbreaking.

1/23/2010 5:00:34 PM

Ok, it's not hard to imagine how this is done, but I still have never seen something like this.

I feel like I'm playing Call of Duty and by the end of the video I'm going to be shot in the face.

1/23/2010 5:32:38 PM

Quote :

"I don't think the tech behind this would be very complicated at all - just install a few cameras with overlapping fields of view and stitch the feeds together with software. The software already exists to stitch together still images and the videos are essentially just a series of jpgs. Perhaps it might be necessary to ensure that the frames of each video camera are being captured at the same time, but I doubt it. Seems that they could just use some averaging when they created the new 360 frame. "

It's far simpler than that actually. One of these:

Generates an image that looks like this:


And some simple-ish geometric calculations turns it into an image us humans can figure out.

The cool things about this video are that i've never seen this done with video before, only still images. With still images, the conversion time was far, far slower than ~1/20th of a second. And with the video, for me at least, it almost feels like i'm watching a 3D movie.

It won't be too much longer before someone makes an app that takes that type of 4D information to generate a 3D world you could navigate by a video game.

1/23/2010 5:43:37 PM

^ thats what i would have guessed

THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS!

1/23/2010 5:45:29 PM

^ you'll have to forgive Solinari, he's not known for his intellect.



[Edited on January 23, 2010 at 6:15 PM. Reason : not that his way wouldnt work...]

1/23/2010 5:46:46 PM

^^^I'm not totally convinced. If you watch, you see where it looks like different feeds stitched together. At like 90 degree intervals or something, it is especially noticeable on the car itself. Also especially noticeable if you look up. I'd guess it's 5 feeds in total (front, left, right, back, top)

Quote :

"It won't be too much longer before someone makes an app that takes that type of 4D information to generate a 3D world you could navigate by a video game."

wot? I hope you mean on rails...

[Edited on January 23, 2010 at 5:52 PM. Reason : sadfadsf]

1/23/2010 5:50:30 PM

Check out the second video to see the shadow of what the camera looks like, it is attached to a backpack

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/01/world/haiti.360/index.2.html

1/23/2010 6:15:12 PM

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/interactive/2010/01/world/haiti.360/media/drive.flv

raw video feed

The link is actually on that video... this is the product they used:

http://www.immersivemedia.com/

1/23/2010 6:15:16 PM

yup that's pretty much exactly what I described, but with more cameras

1/23/2010 6:20:48 PM

They have a bunch more videos here: http://www.immersivemedia.com/haiti/

I wonder how hard that would be to implement with HTML5?

[Edited on January 23, 2010 at 6:35 PM. Reason : ]

1/23/2010 6:34:36 PM

Quote :

"you'll have to forgive Solinari, he's not known for his intellect."

aw, turns out I was right. like I said, liberals rely far too much on their emotions when reaching a conclusion.

1/23/2010 7:35:17 PM

Quote :

"not really - he drove into oncoming traffic just to get ahead in a traffic jam, thereby unnecessarily risking other peoples lives for no other reason than to make a cool video for the website."

that's how it goes in haiti, if you have a bigger truck or bigger balls you get the right-of-way.

1/24/2010 3:54:22 PM