Facebook unveiled its 360-degree camera a few months back, as part of its push into virtual reality. But it also unveiled that it won't be selling them. Instead, the social media giant's plans for Surround 360 will be open source-- and they've finally been released.
Facebook released all the hardware and software designs of its Surround 360 camera on Github. The whole thing comes in an Ikea-like package.
All-in-all, building a Surround 360 will take four hours and will cost $30,000 in parts. But that is money well spent. The 4-megapixel lenses can shoot 4K, 6K, or 8K 360 video, and fisheye lenses on the top and bottom remove the blindspots. Post-processing will be a snap with Facebook’s image-stitching software, and the camera also offers dynamic streaming.
Facebook previously announced that the goal of making the camera open-source was simple: it wanted more 360 content. “Build it yourself, modify it, make different versions — that’s the goal. We wanted to connect the world with rich, new media. This is how we can get there faster,” said Facebook’s director of engineering on the project Brian Cabral.
Interested in the project? Set aside four hours (or more) of your time and get building!
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