There are several ways to experience Spherical Video. Firstly, IMC's patented high-powered DSP viewing engine, blends all of the camera image streams together in real time, at full resolution, 30 times a second. The output may be then be used as a viewfinder in the field when immersive recording, to show exactly what is being recorded as a blended image. In fact more than one ImmersiViewer unit may be used at once, so that multiple independent point of view windows can be generated within a single immersive environment.
Point of view windows may be displayed on computer or video monitor or a head-mounted display, where one can look around simply by turning one's head. In addition to this personal point of view window, the Spherical Video image streams are also suitable for direct projection onto a dome screen, providing the audience with a communal immersive experience.
Once the environment has been recorded on IMC's custom high-performance digital video recording platform, IMC's custom post production stitching software creates a blended "sphere movie" showing the whole environment in motion at once, using QuickTime® or Windows Media® Player. These sphere movies are suitable for recording on CDs or DVDs and are compatible with image standards such as MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. They may also be broadcast using HDTV resolution channels. To look around within this pre-recorded world, there is IMC's Viewer software for Windows. Here the viewer can look around in every direction within the full motion immersive video, playback at different speeds or pause on single frame and view in 360 degrees.
The IMC Dodeca system's ability to capture a 360-degree visual record of an environment can for example be invaluable to geographical and geological research, enabling researchers to better monitor environmental sensitivities and share their findings more effectively.
