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virtual-realityphotography

Is there a term for explorable vr scene?

Is there a tech community agreed term for a photographic (well as close as possible) scene that can be explored by walking around? Obviously, within certain limits. Say, a museum could scan a sculpture with laser and make it available on vr, 3d mesh with properly mapped textures. Is there a name for such thing? The so-called 360 VR photos definitely fall short of such detail.

Solution

  • I think the most common names are:

    • 360 if it's just an image from one point containing all the angles, usually a equirectangular or cubemap texture/video. Some have stereoscopy, but it's very limited.
    • 360 with depth it's a 360 but apart from color, it has depth information. This allows stereoscopy and some movement, but because of shadowing and problems with acquiring depth maps its almost never used. In the future AI-based filling of shadowed areas, and perhaps replacing the need for capturing depth, might make this a commonly used format.
    • photogrammetry if it's converted to a textured mesh, has proper depth and can be viewed from all angles (for example Vanishing of Ethan Carter - unfortunatelly 3d models from that article seem to be missing, sent them an email, maybe they'll fix it)
    • lightfield if it's a volume containing lots of 360 images with some kind of interpolation between them. Has proper depth but can be viewed only from the mapped volume (see Welcome To Lightfields)