Continuous reorient 360

[Tim Squires]

I have launched a Gear 360 up on a balloon which generated some good footage but watching it makes everyone feel sick. Is there a way of continuously reorienting the video so the view does not spin? Thanks to the built in gyro, the horizon is always level, just need to correct the spinning.

360 at 34,000 metres - YouTube

Thanks.

[Jim Michael]

Perhaps use a compass or inertia sensor and control with a gimbal motor?

[Tim Squires]

Good idea, thanks. I have gimbals which could possibly be adapted to mount the Gear 360 but it is a totally different balance than the other cameras so will take quite a bit of work. I was hoping for something in post-processing that would let me continuously control the orientation. Something like the Dashwood 360 reorient tool but instead of setting the orientation for a clip, it can be moved around.

[Giroud Francois]

with adobe premiere (starting premiere pro cc2015.3) you can move video, so you would compensate for the rotation.

[Dan Parkes]

Hi Tim

I have been recently experimenting with 360/VR post-production workflows and there is indeed a possible solution to this issue, which although not perfect, would certainly help ease the spinning effect. There is a "Rotate Sphere" effect in the Mettle Skybox suite plugin for Premiere that allows you to rotate the Y axis (i.e. pan it) but more importantly, it also allows you to keyframe it, meaning that you can animate the rotation over time.

Interestingly, the Mettle Skybox Suite has been acquired by Adobe, and will be integrated into Creative Cloud by end of 2017 so, in other words, will soon be free. But in the meantime, if you already have Adobe Premiere all you need to do is drop them an email (details on the Mettle website) and they will send you the plugin now for free. From my initial experience, the plugin works very well.

If you don't have Premiere then I'd be happy to take a look at the footage and use the "Rotate Sphere" effect and see what can be achieved. Just let me know.

[Donald McPherson]

Add a big vane. Like a weather vane to keep it pointing into the wind💨

[Jim Michael]

Originally Posted by Donald McPherson

Add a big vane. Like a weather vane to keep it pointing into the wind💨

The balloon is moving with the wind, so from the balloon's perspective there is no wind and thus a rudder would not help. The one exception occurs when the balloon passes through an inversion layer and an apparent wind would exist while the balloon accelerates to the wind speed in the layer.