Feature Requests (Aug 2016 POLL)

This is a community-generated list of feature requests that will be presented to the RICOH THETA product manager and overall business management team.

What’s the most important feature you want in the next version of the RICOH THETA?

  • Raw Image Support
  • 4K video
  • Live streaming at HD resolution
  • Live streaming over WiFi
  • Time / date tags on theta360.com images
  • Removable/Expandable MicroSD card
  • Underwater cover (better than current test tube version)
  • Replacement lenses
  • Replaceable battery

0 voters

Thank you for your input! Please reply to this post if you want a different feature request added to the poll.

The camera have a nice design a 4K Pro version with removable SD card and battery has to have a bigger body so why not have a 3,5 mm plug for external microphone
hate to say it but the audio are little under normal to day, mono with no settings for microphone boost or microphone amplification in the firmware.

Poll Results will be reviewed with TK Tone, the product marketing engineering manager for the RICOH THETA.

I believe some type of external microphone jack is under consideration. @jesse, can you add that to the poll? I should have remembered that one.

Interesting problem. It appears you can’t add items to a poll “after 5 minutes.” I’ve created a new poll with the audio feature request. Let’s discuss how we can keep adding feature requests to a poll as they come in.

  • Raw Image Support
  • 4K video
  • Live streaming at HD resolution
  • Live streaming over WiFi
  • Time / date tags on theta360.com images
  • Removable/Expandable MicroSD card
  • Underwater cover (better than current test tube version)
  • Replacement lenses
  • Replaceable battery
  • Audio connector (allowing connection to external mic)

0 voters

Ok but i think it should be Nice with an application
that could fine tune the censor focus on both fisheye lenses individually
To make it even, to day yo have to send the camera back to Ricoh :disappointed_relieved:
if one lens is out of focus.

Being able to take multiple photos and process them later (maybe in the computer-software). This would be great for HDRi photos on set when making film. Right now we’re using an app that takes multiple photos in different exposures but it takes 1-2 minutes for each HDRi shoot and on set that is a lot of time!

You got a point there utjduo normally on DSLR and most Phones in HDR settings you can save the different expositors for later
with that it takes a blinking of an eye to shoot a full memory card :grinning:

I don’t think the technique of putting the new poll in the thread is going to work. I think you need to close the original poll after a week or two and open a new poll with the feature requests. We can then report back poll results to TK (RICOH THETA product manager) for different timeframes. For example,

  • poll 1 = Aug 22 to 31
  • poll 2 = Sept 1 through Sept 30

We’re mtg with the product manager tomorrow (Wed) and can discuss the logistics of reporting back organized feedback to him.

Thank you. I am not an experienced photography. Is this the same feature request as RAW images? I thought that the RAW image would be in dual fisheye and thus not have the delay of stitching the dual-fisheye into equirectangular with the internal ASIC of the camera. Is this something like RAW image with continuous shutter? How should we describe it?

RAW = RAW data from the camera sensor, meaning you can change all digital data after like white balance, iso, contrast and so on. With RAW you get muuuch more information to work with in post and can bring forward greater details that else would be impossible.
I don’t know if the other users are talking about unprocessed images with RAW (the format the videos are when saved from the Theta S) or processed RAW (360-image with RAW information in the image).

HDR = High dynamic range. You get more information in the highlights and shadows. If you shoot on a bright day the final shot doesn’t get overexposed or underexposed. This you have already implanted but I wanted to say so you know the difference between HDR and HDRi (from what I think I know).

HDRi (from what I think I know) = A technique used when lightning and adding reflections to 3D models. A HDRi image contains multiple 360 images of different exposures. For the naked eye you won’t see all the information inside the image but a computer can use this extra information to calculate the brightness and color of different objects in the image.
Eg, The computer can see that the sun is MUCH brighter than a lamp in the same image by looking at the different exposures while for the naked eye they are both as bright.
So HDR is for the eye while HDRi is for the computer.
This technique is a gigantic time-saver and everyone is using it from beginners to the top in Hollywood.


Right now I’m in the middle of a feature film and we picked the Theta S to shoot the HDRi images instead of taking 50 images alone with a camera. It’s a great time saver but it could become even better if the processing could wait till after all photos is done. As said before, if we could get the unprocessed photos from the Theta S (could be a API setting only so the “normal” users won’t get confused and shoot images they don’t want) and later process them with the Theta software.
There is not a need for RAW for HDRi but it would be a great extra to make the images even better! But from what I read in another thread, RAW would be difficult to implant, implanting the feature to take unprocessed photos would be a great thing for the Theta S and would open up a lot of new usability-doors!

TL;DR:
Being able to take unprocessed photos and later process them through the Theta software would open up for a lot of usabilities like HDRi (post-processing with all images in another software) used by everyone!
If later being able to shoot unprocessed RAW would be a dream come true!


If you have any other thoughts or questions, don’t hesitate to ask me!

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Thank you. I think that the request is for dual-fisheye still images with RAW information. Though, now that I think about it, there could be two different requests, dual-fisheye images with RAW information and dual-fisheye images without all the RAW information. The problem with sharing all the RAW information is that some business manager needs to assess if there’s any special information that RICOH can’t share.

I’m meeting with the product manager Thursday or Friday. I’ve heard of this feature request before. Evidently, the special effects houses are using the THETA for 3D animation information. The main example that TK explained to me was an image like the liquid metal in terminator and the reflections of light from the liquid metal. @jcasman, might be worthwhile to discuss this with TK and then add it to the next poll. The question is how to we capture his as a poll question?

  • unprocessed still images in dual-fisheye for HDRi special effects to speed up later processing on servers
  • unprocessed still images in dual-fisheye for HDRi special effects to speed up later processing on servers

Pretty much that! The part that the Theta software needs to be able to process those images is pretty important tho, but maybe that goes without saying.

Actually, I didn’t realize that. Thank you.

  • unprocessed still images in dual-fisheye for HDRi special effects to speed up later processing with the RICOH THETA desktop software as part of a workflow

Question: Do you need the desktop software to be modified to accept scripting or other triggers as part of your workflow? Are you okay with manually dropping the images onto the desktop software? AFAIK, the desktop software doesn’t accept command line input.

Adding command line or API access to the conversion library could be a nice request and feature that we offer to professionals for free as part of a developer partner program.

Thanks.

  1. unprocessed still images in dual-fisheye for HDRi special effects for really quick shoots on set. Later processing with the RICOH THETA desktop software as part of a workflow

Changed the structure some, but this is it!

Question: Do you need the desktop software to be modified to accept scripting or other triggers as part of your workflow? Are you okay with manually dropping the images onto the desktop software? AFAIK, the desktop software doesn’t accept command line input.

I’m OK with dropping the images manually as a start. Being able to drop multiple images would be a great thing or else it would become very tedious. If there could be a command-line feature in the software it could be good for bigger post-houses and their workflow but for our production simple drag-and-drop works.

Being able to access the conversion library over API could be a big thing! Then HDRi softwares could implant the conversion to their software so you simply drop it into their software. One less step to go!

Thank you. I remember that there was discussion with RICOH about this to offer the conversion library API under NDA as part of a partner program. Large companies like well-known-social-media-company have more access to the conversion libraries for their mobile apps. We’ll propose to offer something similar to small shop development partners as part of a free program. Let’s see what the folks at RICOH have to say.

For me, updates to the theta360 site would be welcomed more than updates to the camera. Things like:

  • Multiple image upload (instead of having to do it one by one from your phone)
  • Ability to sort images into galleries/albums to share
  • Simple editing features

Open sourcing their photo sphere viewer for others to develop new web applications would be awesome too, but that’s probably more the web developer in me wanting to develop something with it.

A variation of this will come to the US as a paid service. I don’t know if there will be free version or if the features from the business application will trickle down to the free consumer version.

I think you can still get free trial accounts of the Japanese version. Here’s a guide in English.

Here’s a simple web site concept we created for a meetup.

http://codetricity.github.io/DriverEye/

Holobuilder is available right now.

Pano2VR works. Search for examples from Svendus

Hopefully, the main theta360.com site will also improve.

A 4K version should be able to shoot 3000x6000 for Facebook and 4000x8000 for Google Maps Earth.

Furthermore we should be able to write meta information in the image file
Description, copyrights and so on because :disappointed:
Sadly Google street View app (i OS) still miss that function
and in Google Maps it is rather buggy in Windows, I OX and Linux
And specially in Googles own Browser Chrome we were never able to edit or write this information.
On Google+ you can in the old version if you go to your Photo Spheres on Your account but it is not easy

Google read meta information,
so being able to write meta information in the image file should solve that Problem.

Thank you everyone! I am now closing this thread and will be reporting results to the RICOH THETA product manager tomorrow (Sept 2, 2016).

We are opening a NEW poll with your feature request suggestions starting today. We’ll leave it open for all of September. If you want to get others to vote, great, please encourage others to participated. If you want to add more specific features, please add them by replying to this post.

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