Facebook introduces Surround 360, an open-source 360-degree video camera

Social networking giant Facebook has introduced its own 360-degree stereoscopic 3D video camera dubbed Facebook Surround 360 at the F8 developer conference at Fort Mason in San Francisco, California.

What Facebook revealed was a reference design for high-end video capturing system, for which it will release as an open-source project including camera design and stitching code on GitHub this summer. 

The Surround 360 has a disk-shaped spaceship-like design  that has 17 evenly spaced 4-megapixel  lenses that can shoot videos in 4K, 6K and 8K. It uses the 17 lenses to capture images and produce a 360-degree spherical video for viewing in VR headsets like Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, and on smartphones, tablets and PCs (monoscopic).

The Surround 360 camera also has a single fish-eye camera installed on top and two on the bottom, so that there won't be any holes in the image. It also has its own web-based software, which can be used to capture images and live action footages in 360-degree.

Facebook said that the Surround 360 is the best commercial VR camera ever created and costs $30,000 to buy the parts necessary to build it.