◦ Walt Disney’s Circle-Vision 360 (1967)
One of the earliest versions of videos that spanned the full 360 degrees was a cinema of sorts created by Walt Disney in 1967. This was achieved by using multiple cinema projectors that would piece together to recreate the entire room for the audience who would be standing in the centre of the auditorium.
◦ Hurricane Katrina (2008)
The earliest documented use of 360 degree videos in news was for the report on Hurricane Katrina in 2008. This was used to show the devastation that the hurricane caused without having to film the area multiple times. This allowed the audience to spin the camera round by themselves and see the devastation “first hand” without having to be subjected to the one camera angle that the camera crew chose when reporting on the incident. 360 videos really gave freedom to the viewers in a way that hadn’t been done before as they could choose where to look.
◦ Expensive Equipment
When this video format first began, if anyone wanted to create a 360 video, they would have to used special equipment that would be very expensive or use multiple cameras to film all 360 degrees. In recent years, especially with the creation and affordability of Virtual Reality headsets, it is now easier than ever for someone to film a 360 degree video. GoPro 360 cameras are still between £200 and £400 but are much more affordable than 360 cameras from a decade ago.
◦ Facebook and YouTube (2015)
Due to platforms like Facebook and YouTube being among the first to allow 360 videos, accessing created videos became easier which, for a while, spurred a trend of videos being created and also a surge in panoramic photos.
◦ News Sites
As mentioned previously, Hurricane Katrina was covered by a news site using a 360 video but later on, when Facebook and YouTube started allowing that format of videos, more news sites started using 360 videos to draw more attention to what they had to say.
◦ VPL Research
Pioneers in virtual reality were VPL Research in 1985 as they were the first ones to sell VR googles and gloves as well as some other products that would be used to enhance the experience.
◦ Training Astronauts
In 1989, NASA officially launched a program to train future astronauts using virtual reality. This was used as a way to simulate the visuals and audio of being on a space station, in a rocket and even on the moon.
◦ Google Street View
A form of virtual reality that most people gloss over and forget about is Google Street View. This was created as an add-on to Google Maps to allow users to see exactly where they would be going, for example, and what the roads and surrounding areas look like.
◦ Oculus Rift Kickstarter (2012)
In August 2012, Oculus launched a Kickstarter (crowd-funding project) for the Rift, a fairly pricey VR gaming headset. The Kickstarter was incredibly successful with Oculus receiving $2,437,429 in a single month. This caught the eye of Facebook and in 2014, Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion, clearly seeing some potential.
◦ Oculus Rift, PSVR and HTC Vive launch 2017
3 years later in 2017, Oculus Rift launched as well as some competition from other companies. HTC being direct competition as the Vive was also for gaming PCs, like the Rift, whilst also being sold at a similar price point. Sony also got in on the VR action by releasing the PlayStationVR unit which was noticeably cheaper than the Rift and Vive but was not as powerful or as high quality as the headset ran off the PlayStation 4 instead of a PC. This turned out to not be a negative though as it allowed some gamers who couldn’t afford the $1,000 for the headset as well as around another thousand dollars for a PC that could run it, to experience virtual reality within their own homes. Since then, there have been a lot of high quality games that have been made for all headsets.
References
Shukla, U., 2018. An Introduction To 360° Video. [online] Knight Lab Studio. Available at: <https://studio.knightlab.com/results/storytelling-layers-on-360-video/an-introduction-to-360-video/> [Accessed 5 May 2020].
Barnard, D., 2019. History Of VR – Timeline Of Events And Tech Development. [online] Virtualspeech.com. Available at: <https://virtualspeech.com/blog/history-of-vr> [Accessed 5 May 2020].
Dormehl, L., 2017. 8 Major Milestones In The Brief History Of Virtual Reality. [online] Digital Trends. Available at: <https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/history-of-virtual-reality/> [Accessed 5 May 2020].
Barker, S., 2020. Is A New PSVR Launching Alongside PS5 This Year?. [online] Push Square. Available at: <http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/01/is_a_new_psvr_launching_alongside_ps5_this_year> [Accessed 5 May 2020].
Kickstarter. n.d. Oculus Rift: Step Into The Game. [online] Available at: <https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game/posts> [Accessed 5 May 2020].
Immersive and Sensory Design 