360 Degree Image Capture System

In the pursuit of a more efficient render pipeline and real-time graphics systems, I ventured on the path to redevelop an existing 360 scene capture system built within the Unreal Engine. The original system depended on the simultaneous capture and transfer of six full resolution 90 degree cameras from a single point in the 3D scene (capturing forward,left,right,back,up & down). However the development team did not have similar experience working with complete 360 virtual reality environment. The act of passing six full resolution images led to disparity between both quality and framesync in our attached blending software – some bespoke shader code that captured the six images and the turned them into a seamless equirectangular image. Due to the amount of data required to be passed into the shader, some images would update every frame, where as some would not complete in time leading to a tearing effect when experienced in either projection or HMD.

The development took form of implementing the six image stitching into the game engine environment, where data transfer can happen far more instantaneously – where the six required camera angles can be captured, stitched and then re-captured as a single image (equirectangular/fulldome) hidden within the game level of Unreal Engine.

 

This development served as a prototyping stage for compete commercial integration of what became the ‘Soluis/Sublime Portal Plugin’ – a packaged tool provided to external clients and development teams allowing them to integrate their Unreal work into our interactive experience pipeline.

 

The below PDF is a extracted section of research giving an overview of the process in far more detail than listed on this page.