/How to unwrap 360 (spherical) videos

How to unwrap 360 (spherical) videos

When you want to monitor a large area with the minimum amount of camera’s, dome camera’s are a great way to go. When utilizing a fisheye lens you are able to capture 360 degrees of video with a single camera. Most recorders and supplied software is able to transform these videos in multiple viewing angles. What, however, if you want to unwrap the 360 videos without this software?

The main problem with spherical videos is that they can be hard to analyze if you are unfamiliar with the environment. The image is extremely distorted because of the fisheye lens. Wouldn’t it be great if we were able to somehow unwrap the video and watch it in some kind of panorama format?
There are some ways to unwrap a 360 image with tools like Photoshop, videos is another story. Amped FIVE is one of the few products on the market that specializes in transforming and enhancing live video, this means you can manipulate the video and watch the results real-time.

Unwrap a 360 video using Amped FIVE

In this example, we will use this demo video from Axis.

360 spherical video

In this scene we see a single 360-degree camera covering the entire shop. This view is extremely distorted and it’s hard to see all the details.
We will use the Unroll feature in Amped FIVE to transform this video into something more usable.

In the filter menu, choose Edit and Unroll.

360 spherical video unwrapped (upside down)

This already looks a whole not better, however, it’s upside down! We will use the rotate function to fix this. In the filter menu, choose Edit and  Rotate in the filter settings set the Angle to 180.

360 spherical video unwrapped Rotated

That’s better, now we have a clear view of the store. Just look at the difference below.

360 spherical video comparrison

 

The best part of using a tool like Amped FIVE is that you will be able to apply additional filters to clear up the picture and you are able to live view the results.