Using one of several recent 360 cameras and a technique called 3D Gaussian splatting, you can recreate any space in 3D to share with anyone in the world. Insta360 is adding this new feature, called Spatial Capture, and it only requires you to walk around with a camera recording a video for a few minutes. All processing is then done in the cloud. After a few minutes, you’ve got something that looks and feels like a video game, except it represents a real place, and no programming knowledge is required.
Admittedly, this new Spatial Capture feature isn’t something most people need in their everyday lives. It is definitely cool, though, and a new, unique way to share a place with others. However, for certain people and professions, it could be even more useful.
Imagine a museum that you can “walk” through in VR or on the web. Real estate agents can have smoother, more realistic home showings. Basically, any space that is worth being shared with the world can be created in 3D without expensive specialized equipment or software.
Right now, the easiest way to share spaces beyond photographs or videos is with static, 360-degree photo spheres. You can look around, but the only way to “move” is to leap to wherever the next photosphere was taken. If you wanted to see something between those two images, you’re out of luck. With a spatial capture environment, again, it’s more like a video game, letting you look and move around however and wherever you want, to the limits of the capture.
Insta360Getting splatted
The process is simple. You just need to walk slowly around a space with the 360 camera recording its highest-resolution video. For my testing, I used the Insta360 X6 recording in 8K resolution at 50fps. You’re limited to 2 minutes of footage, and it recommends a space smaller than 100 square meters, which is roughly 1,000 square feet. So you won’t be able to capture a stadium or anything. A small house, or a few rooms in a big house, will work.
Once recorded, you upload via a specific section in the mobile app. This is faster if you download the footage to your phone first and then disconnect from the camera. If you don’t, it tries to upload from the camera over a direct Wi-Fi connection but sends it to the cloud over your cellular network, which can take a while depending on your service.
Once uploaded, Insta360’s servers start working on it. Since this is in the cloud, you don’t need to keep the app open. It can take a while, though, with the app saying upwards of 90 minutes, though perhaps as low as 60 and as high as 120. My test captures took far less, but I had prerelease access, so I assume fewer people were using it. Once more people start using the feature, it could slow down.
The splat
Right now, the only way to fully view the end result is either in Insta360’s app or via a link that goes to its website. I recommended Insta360 add a way to embed the result on other webpages (like here on CNET), and a representative told me they’d look into it.
If you want to share the result in 2D without a link, you can create two types of videos based on the result to share on social media (shown above). The first two examples in the video earlier in this story are called Ripple. These show the point cloud, and then a wave of colorful fog adds in the real-world textures. The other, called Particle, shows the sand-like point cloud spinning around and then as it settles, the real-world textures load in. During my prerelease testing, there wasn’t a way to change the angle or otherwise adjust these videos, which I think would make them more interesting. One of my videos, for instance, ended in an uninteresting corner of the room, which was a bit anticlimactic given the rest of the video.
I also tried some outdoor recording, despite the app recommending indoor spaces. My results weren’t great, but I think it just requires more practice and a better understanding of the current limitations of the tech. The 2-minute recording cap may seem like a lot, but you need to walk slowly and make sure you cover the entire area thoroughly. Basically, coverage density is far more important than scope/size.
Insta360 supplied some outdoor examples captured in Shakespeare’s home town of Stratford-upon-Avon by immersive filmmaker Hugh Hou that are quite good. You can check them out here, here and here.
Spatial capture 2 you
Insta360 is adding spatial capture to all its recent 360 cameras, including the X4 Air, X5 and the flagship X6. Right now, you can create four Spatial Captures per month for free. After you use those up, it’s $1 per render.
If you have one of the 360 cameras, look for the Spatial Capture feature from Sept. 28.
