360VR Stabilization

Modern audiences are used to the dynamic camerawork of their favorite movies and TV shows. For viewers who are expecting a high-end futuristic virtual reality experience, a 360° video camera stuck on a tripod is disappointing and just plain boring.

Many of the 360VR producers that we've talked to have concluded that 360 VR cameras can't move, or the viewers will be “blowing chunks,” as one colorfully put it, ie vomiting. Not so!

You can shoot 360VR with moving cameras—you just need SynthEyes!

SynthEyes's “ stabilization” is quite different than conventional non-360VR stabilization. Because a 360VR camera sees in all directions already, there's no cropping when stabilizing, and therefore no zoom and no resolution loss. Even more, with typical workflows SynthEyes doesn't even generate or resample images at all: rather than producing images, it outputs the information required to stabilize the shot to downstream applications such as After Effects, where the stabilization can be integrated with the same workflow that you use for color grading and adding effects such as titles.

SynthEyes's 360VR stabilization is another whole level past conventional stabilization. Typical conventional stabilization uses low-pass filtering that mostly attenuates the bumps, but they're still there, along with drift.

SynthEyes firmly locks the relationship between the virtual world and the viewer's real world environment. So “North” in the virtual environment will always correspond to the same real direction in the viewer's room. Similarly, a virtual sun will always be in the same direction. That's true through the length of the shot, not just for a few seconds, enhancing the feeling that the viewer is in another world.

SynthEyes's native omnidirectional 360VR solver is able to use information from all 360° around each image simultaneously, not just information from one limited portion of the frame used by other approaches. Each of a 360VR camera rig's different cameras is affected differently by rolling shutter—SynthEyes averages over the entire image to produce the most solid result. And there's no worry if the trackable portions of the shot move around over the course of the shot.

SynthEyes produces a stable environment that encourages the viewer to look around actively, rather than being passive. That's different than in conventional filmmaking, but different in a good way for the 360VR medium.

Because SynthEyes is a powerful traditional match-moving tool, not only does it give you an amazingly stable world, it gives you the full 3-D camera path and tracking data to render and composite new 3-D objects into the scene, whether that's a set extension, hiding some of your production gear, or adding rampaging beasts or vehicles.

Please check out our 19-minute continuous-take sample footage in a head-mounted display (Google Cardboard, if nothing else) to get a true sense of the SynthEyes experience. We think you'll find your creative possibilities will expand dramatically once you do.