6DoF volumetric experiences at DeoVR

14 days ago

Are you experienced with VR and six degrees of freedom (6DoF)? We'd like to hear from you. DeoVR is looking to integrate with 6DoF providers to showcase their exciting content on the DeoVR platform. For the next steps, reach out to creator@deovr.com.

Integrating 6DoF volumetric experiences into DeoVR is key to our 2024 roadmap. But what is 6DoF, and how will it affect the future of VR?

What is 6DoF?

6DoF (6 degrees of freedom) allows you to move within your virtual environment. This means you can look left and right, up and down, and even move forwards and backwards.

At the moment, when watching recorded VR content on DeoVR, the videos are projected on a sphere/dome. So when you move your viewing point in VR, you are distorting what you see.

Our devs are looking into “depth maps”, which essentially calculate the depth of an image in virtual reality and tell you how near or far an object in VR is. Mastering this will be vital to making VR seem fully immersive.

What’s next for 6DoF and DeoVR?

There are many impressive 3D scanning projects out there, which can be used in partnership with DeoVR. If we work together to make it a success, we expect it to boost the up-and-coming 3D scanning economy, similar to how DeoVR has played a huge role in the success of VR180 content over recent years.

In a technical sense, we’re looking into the following:

Multicamera video recording
Representation generation
Encoding
Data streaming
Decoding

The danger of major 6DoF video companies

Companies such as Metastage, 4DViews, Dimension, 8i, and others specialize in capturing 6DoF volumetric video. However, this comes at a huge cost and practically all are working on “loss leader pricing”. They are burning money at Hollywood studio levels and are making no effort to manage costs or increase efficiency.

This is because they are hoping to get big, dominate the market and be bought out by a major corporation.

For example, the now-closed Intel Studios quoted $5-10K per minute of volumetric video. Even a company as big as Intel couldn’t justify keeping this 10,000-square-foot volumetric capture stage open in Los Angeles.

The smart alternative: small startups

A better option is small startup operations that do portable on-site capture with tightly honed support teams. For DeoVR and its clients, these volumetric video partners are a far more reliable and affordable option. Pleasingly, we are seeing more firms emerge that are compatible with the budget of an indie business.

Our 6DoF expert, Andrew, says “The leanest, most efficient and effective volumetric capture tech I am aware of, from the last five years, came from the Israeli company Mantis Vision. They had Samsung's sensor partner helping them on structured light bespoke sensors for ultra-fast turnaround capture.”

The good news is many other companies are taking a DIY approach to volumetric video now, opening up this technology to a much wider range of VR creators.

Useful resources

Here are some of the exciting startups and concepts that we’re looking into. Visit the links below to get a better understanding of 6DoF, lightfield, depth maps, 3D scans and the future of VR:

Join the discussion at the DeoVR forum, Facebook and Reddit. If you’re an expert in 6DoF or any of the issues covered above, get in touch - we’re always looking for talented people to join our team!