Creating high-quality, 360-degree stereo video experiences can be complex and computationally intensive work, especially for real-time streaming. With the latest release of NVIDIA’s VRWorks 360 Video SDK, it just got easier.

Version 2.0 of the SDK adds support for NVIDIA CUDA 10 and our latest Turing-based Quadro and GeForce RTX GPUs. It accelerates stitching of 360-degree video on RTX-powered GPUs by up to 2x relative to Pascal-based GPUs. And it offers a host of new features that make it easier to stitch and stream 360-degree mono- and stereoscopic video. These include:

Ambisonic Audio – increases the immersiveness of 360-degree videos by enabling 3D, omnidirectional audio such that the perceived direction of sound sources change when viewers modify their orientation.
Custom Region of Interest Stitch – enables adaptive stitching by defining the desired field of view rather than stitching a complete panorama. This enables new use cases such as 180-degree video while reducing execution time and improving performance.
Improved Mono Stitch – increases robustness and improves image quality for equatorial camera rigs. Multi-GPU setups are now supported for up to 2x scaling.
Moveable Seams – manually adjusts the seam location in the region of overlap between two cameras to preserve visual fidelity, particularly when objects are close to the camera.
New Depth-Based Mono Stitch – uses depth-based alignment to improve the stitching quality in scenes with objects close to the camera rig and improves the quality across the region of overlap between two cameras. This option is more computationally intensive than moving the seams, but provides a more robust result with complex content.
Warp 360 – provides highly optimized image warping and distortion removal by converting images between a number of 360 projection formats, including perspective, fisheye and equirectangular. It can transform equirectangular stitched output into a projection format such as cubemap to reduce streaming bandwidth, leading to increased performance.

Support for VRWorks 360 Video SDK 2.0

We offered a select group of partners an early look at the new SDK and they agree: these new features bring a much higher level of performance, immersiveness and responsiveness to stitch and stream 360 video.

Pixvana SPIN Studio is an end-to-end system for editing, creating and sharing amazing VR interactive content.

“With VRWorks 360, our new stitcher in SPIN Studio scales dramatically,” said Sean Safreed, co-founder of Pixvana. “Editing and creating masters for a full day’s shoot doesn’t get faster than this.”

STRIVR is a leader in using VR to train individuals and improve performance.

“When you experience a situation as if you are actually there, learning retention rates can soar,” said Brian Meek, chief technology officer at STRIVR. “The new Warp 360 will help ensure our customers stay fully immersed, and the functionality and performance that Turing brings to VRWorks can’t be beat.”

Professional VR camera and software maker Z CAM is dedicated to developing high-performance imaging products and solutions.

“We’ve integrated the NVIDIA VRWorks 360 Video SDK with our Z CAM WonderLive and WonderStitch software solution. This makes it easy for VR developers and content creators to live capture and stitch multiple sensor images on our VR cameras,” said Kinson Loo, CEO of Z CAM. “New features like Moveable Seams and Custom Region of Interest dramatically improve the quality and speed, opening new use cases and opportunities that give our customers greater flexibility. We expect this to take live event production to the next level.”

Mobile Viewpoint offers easy-to-operate, lightweight devices for live video capturing, including IQ SportProducer, which incorporates the NVIDIA VRWorks 360 Video SDK.

“In today’s world of changing content distribution and consumption models, the ability to deliver live video is more important than ever before,” said Michel Bais, managing director at Mobile Viewpoint. “We were excited to have an early look at the latest VRWorks 360 Video SDK release. The combination of features will make it easy for broadcasters to produce live sports productions using a single 360 camera faster than ever.”

Learn more about VRWorks. Download the VRWorks 360 Video SDK 2.0 and the latest drivers.