4D Scanning from TimeSlice Comes Alive on Sketchfab

3D model sharing site Sketchfab is already laying the foundation for a social 3D experience with users sharing 3D scans of their newborns and other personal scans with the community. And, with the introduction of VR viewing capabilities, they’ve demonstrated that they’re ready for the wave of VR headsets to hit the market, as well. Today, the site has published a new blog that demonstrates just how ready they are for VR with dynamic 4D content; that is, a moving 3D model captured in motion.

TimeSlice Films, a London-based studio with a focus on unique capture technology, reached out to Sketchfab with news that they had used novel tech from GoPro to capture 4D data. The firm had created a 4D volumetric array using custom hardware and software, as well as experimental GoPro Sync technology, to program 53 GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition cameras to record 3D information across time.  In turn, Sketchfab quickly set to work establishing a way to host it.

Callum Macmillan, Managing Director of TimeSlice Films, comments on the project, “It’s incredibly exciting that Sketchfab have offered to host an example of our prototype 4D footage. Although early days, it’s fantastic to see they intend to support this type of content. Volumetric capture is a crucial evolution of both the still and moving image. It fundamentally changes visual content creation from a fixed-viewpoint to a free-viewpoint experience. We call this type of content Free Viewpoint Media (FVM) – content that can be viewed from any perspective.”

Sketchfab CEO Alban Denoyel points out in his blog post that we currently occupy a VR 1.0 space, occupied by spherical, 360 videos.  I’d add that even stereoscopic 360 videos, as captured by Jaunt, aren’t quite as immersive as VR requires. And, in order for VR to be truly popular, ordinary consumers will need to be able to create their own VR content so that it’s as personal as social media.  Because creating one’s own VR game is no easy task, 3D scanning and, hopefully one day soon, 4D scanning will be a method for consumer-created content.

Alban writes, “With the growth of immersive storytelling, full volumetric capture is the key successor to spherical 360 type videos which currently occupy the “VR 1.0” space. By supporting this on Sketchfab, it is VR-ready out of the box, mobile ready, shareable and embeddable anywhere on the web. Here is the first interactive 4D scan on Facebook ever. :)”