Instant Sphere uses Ricoh Theta S and Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet to make a 360° self-service booth. 360° images taken by visitors can be uploaded to Facebook or on a custom hosting server.

The opposite prototype has been produced by students from ENSEIRB-MATMECA and ENSAM, funded by SNCF and demonstrated during 6 months in the main train station of Bordeaux, France.

Check out the videos of the production, the use and a press release (FR).

Technologies: Unity, Android, NodeJS, nginx, Open Spherical Camera, Facebook developer

• Electronics hardware requires :
  • Rooted Samsung Galaxy Tab A6 10'1" 2016: other Android tablets with the same resolution should suit well
  • Ricoh Theta S: other OSC compatible cameras should suit well, except Ricoh-specific commands that should be disabled
  • Some SIM card to be inserted in the tablet for sending the pictures over the Web
• Since Wifi connection is used to connect to the camera, 3G is needed to connect to Internet
• Android needs a root access to overwrite routing tables, by switching on both Wifi and 3G both at the same time
• If you intend to use the Facebook sharing feature, a Facebook developer account is needed and you must generate your own Facebook app

In v2.x (branch master), a working server is compulsory, since the client app only runs if the tablet has been declared within the online administration page. If you don't want a server, see v1.x (branch fb_only), but this version only supports Facebook sharing. User Interfaces are in French.

1. Setup your environment development and compile the Unity app by following the procedure (FR).
2. Install the software on a new tablet by following the procedure (FR).
3. At first statup, the tablet needs to be declared to the server and Wifi must be connected to the Theta S

• Software assumes that the server is running on server.instant-sphere.com, you can replace target by localhost or any other one
• Server needs SMTP credentials to send e-mails to (default credentials are void)

Follow instructions of serveur_node to setup the server.

Server can be driven by pm2 :

pm2 start server.js
pm2 stop server
pm2 logs server    # See live logs
pm2 show server    # Get information
pm2 monit          # Performance statistics
pm2 startup        # Setup pm2 daemon launching the server at boot time

• Declare or disable the booth on the administration page: https://server.instant-sphere.com/admin
• Consult statistics on Kibana: https://server.instant-sphere.com/kibana