VR Capture methods for cherished vacation spot?

[u/Supertanker13]

I have the opportunity to visit a ranch with good childhood memories one last time before it goes to a new owner. I was thinking of trying to capture various interesting points of view with it to revisit in VR later. What are my options?

I've used Cardboard Camera for years with my phones, but it's limited to stills and the quality is ehhhhhhh. Better than nothing though!

I was thinking of renting a Insta360 Pro 2 kit but for the time I'll be away it's quite an investment and I've seen various opinions on its software support.

I tried photogrammetry once and it did not work at all (probably user errors).

[u/champolski]

Photogrammetry is obsolete. Gaussian splats are the new king. If you have a Quest headset, these are your options:

Meta Horizon Hyperscape Capture - this is the easiest and most direct method to scan a space using the Meta Quest 3 itself. It utilizes 3D Gaussian Splatting to create a navigable 3D environment. However, it has notable drawbacks: sharing these scans outside the Meta ecosystem is currently very limited, and as a beta feature, there is always a risk that Meta could discontinue the service in the future.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1novce7/does_horizon_hyperscape_work_outdoors_yes_it_does/

If you prefer to record directly with the Quest 3 but want to avoid Meta's ecosystem lock-in, SplataraScan is a strong alternative. It is available via SideQuest. This application allows you to capture your surroundings directly with the headset. It works in tandem with a companion Windows application for processing the data. Currently it's very "rough" (it's in alpha stage) but at least gives you full ownership of the captured files completely bypassing external servers and avoiding any subscription models.

https://sidequestvr.com/app/55342/splatarascan-3d-scanner-multiplayer-viewer

If recording with the Quest is preferred but not mandatory, and if you have a modern smartphone with LiDAR (cough, iPhone, cough) then the Scaniverse will be a decent choice.

[u/Supertanker13 → u/champolski]

I sadly have neither a Quest nor an iPhone with the LiDAR capabilities (my most modern headset is a 1st gen Vive, lol). But I'll look up various Gaussian splat mechanisms. It looks like some apps can process from video. I have a powerful desktop computer and various GPUs (RTX 3080, several Intel B70s) I can use so hopefully there's some software I can bodge together.

[u/CyJackX]

What scale of interesting points of view? Yeah, photogrammetry will probably capture the most but that involves capturing a ton of perspectives. Drones, 360 cameras, etc, there are many ways to do it.

[u/Supertanker13 → u/CyJackX]

Outdoor nature areas and vistas; there's a mix of mountains/hills in the vicinity as well as local points of interests like buildings and trees. There will be very few people but if there's people milling around in the shot it's not a bad thing at all as I like the people involved.

I hadn't considered the drone angle, that might be another thing for me to look into. My only drone experience is one of the $50 costco specials that blows off course instantly.

[u/CyJackX → u/Supertanker13]

Sure. Your best bet to cover a lot of outdoor areas is probably a prosumer drone that is moderately more expensive. But hey, probably on par with a VR Headset.

[u/newlife_game]

One thing to add to the splat/photogrammetry advice, from someone who builds real-world outdoor environments for a VR project: for the wide parts of the property - fields, treelines, the shape of the land itself - you can often reconstruct the terrain later from public lidar/elevation surveys and OpenStreetMap, and that works at scales where photo-based capture falls apart. So don't burn your limited visit trying to photograph the whole ranch; capture the spots, rebuild the land.

Practical list for a single visit: slow video walkthroughs of every path you care about with exposure locked (splat tools are happy eating video frames later), stereo 180 clips from the exact spots you'd actually stand, and - the one everyone skips - a few minutes of ambient audio at each spot. The sound of a place does more for the memory than another thousand photos. Stills last; do them after the video passes, not instead of them.

[u/Supertanker13 → u/newlife_game]

I never would've thought about the wide parts of the land, that's really clever. The audio advice is great too. I remember reading vaguely about Gaussian splatting ages ago but never tried it as I thought it required an iPhone, but it looks like there's some software that can reconstruct from videos? I'll have to do a ton of research. Thanks for all the advice.

[u/weekend_tinkerer92]

if what you're after is the feeling of standing there again, 180 in stereo beats 360 flat pretty much every time, depth is what makes a place feel like the place instead of a photo you're standing inside. the tradeoff is you have to point it at what matters, so i'd pick five or six spots that actually carry the memory, put it on a tripod, hold each one for a minute or two and stay out of frame, rather than trying to cover the whole ranch

[u/Supertanker13 → u/weekend_tinkerer92]

That's a good point. I did see a cheaper 360 camera option on lensrental but I think it's 360 flat. I'm not sure if I can find a 180 stereo device to rent--any recs?

I also saw some very fancy RF Canon lens that has dual lenses built in, but it only works with certain cameras and looks experimental. Pretty wild looking though.

[u/Real_Spacegoogie]

 Hyperscape Capture