OpenSpace, the global leader in reality capture and AI-powered analytics, formally announced platform support for the Insta360 Sphere, an easy-to-install, dual 360° camera that can be attached to DJI Mavic Air 2 and Air 2S drones. Paired with OpenSpace’s technology, drone capture with Sphere is easy and scalable—opening up 360° capture for a wider business audience. Sphere joins a growing list of capture technologies supported by OpenSpace’s platform, including 360° cameras, drone cameras, mobile cameras, LiDAR scanners, and more, empowering users to capture however they choose.
“Ease of use is at the core of OpenSpace’s platform,” says Neel Sheth, VP of Product at OpenSpace. “Our customers have been attaching cameras to drones for years, and our dedicated support for Sphere will simplify and improve their experience. We want OpenSpace customers to be able to capture in a way that aligns with their workflows and goals, and extending our drone support through this partnership will further enable exterior captures to be seamlessly integrated into our platform.”
With two cameras, one upward facing and one downward facing, the Insta360 Sphere integration achieves a 360° view where the camera is rendered invisible in the capture, enabling drone pilots of various levels of experience to capture all angles of a jobsite without any reflights needed. Sphere simplifies installation and flight with an easy locking mechanism and FlowState stabilization to ensure smooth footage. OpenSpace is currently beta testing captures with the Insta360 Sphere to improve further capture processing, calibrations, battery life, image quality, ease of installation, elevated captures, and various angle selections. Support for Sphere will be generally available to customers later this quarter.
“With Sphere, builders can seamlessly capture high-resolution footage of the job site without having to worry about factors like stabilization or editing out the drone body,” says Max Richter, VP of Insta360. “We’re excited to partner with OpenSpace to bring an affordable, easy-to-use drone camera to builders to capture the full job site.”
With OpenSpace Capture, users attach cameras to their hard hat, drone, robot, or other apparatus and walk the site as they normally would. Regardless of where the camera is mounted, once the video is uploaded to the cloud, OpenSpace’s computer vision technology stitches images together and pins them to the floor plan, creating a trusted visual record of site status. Powered by the company’s Vision Engine, the site image map is typically ready to view about 15 minutes after upload.