Surround 360 is now open source

What this post added

This post details the open-sourcing of Meta's Surround 360 system, including its hardware camera design and software stitching code. It explains the technical challenges of rendering stereo 360 video, such as handling large data volumes and ensuring near-perfect stitching for comfortable stereo viewing. The post elaborates on methods for constructing stereo panoramas, including view interpolation and the use of optical flow. It describes the rendering pipeline, which involves converting RAW sensor data, applying lens distortion and misalignment corrections, computing optical flow for view interpolation, and compositing images from multiple cameras (including top and bottom cameras to remove the tripod pole) to achieve full 360x180 degree coverage and comfortable stereo.