Spherie: 360° Spherical Media Meets the Oxford English Dictionary
“Spherie, I would like to introduce you to the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford English Dictionary, meet Spherie. I think you two may like to talk.”
Spherie is a word that describes 360° spherical media such as photographs and videos recorded using a 360° spherical camera, or photographs stitched together into a sphere using a set of still photographs, or images and animations rendered into a sphere using rendering software such as LightWave 3D, or 360° spherical media recorded from a scene in a Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) environment such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, or Samsung Gear VR.
In this article I define the word spherie, I describe how Google, Facebook, Kuula, Roundme, Flickr, and many other websites provide first-class support for spheries and I provide some examples of spherie media — photographs, videos, rendered images, and rendered animations — that I have created.
I want to share with the World the exciting possibilities of spherie media and promote the widespread use of the word spherie to help qualify the word for inclusion into the Oxford English Dictionary.
Spherie Etymology
My Facebook post of June 25, 2016, introduced the word spherie and, of course, included a spherie taken using a 360° spherical camera I was holding in my left hand.
Since that initial Facebook posting I have captured over 3,000+ spheries that appear on Google Street View, Google Maps, MLS Real Estate Listings, and Airbnb listings. Collectively my spheries have been viewed more than 50 million times.
Shortly after my Facebook posting, I became aware of one other usage of the word spherie and that was as a proper noun for the name of a VR drone.
Google’s Photo Sphere and Facebook’s 360 Photo
Google uses the two word phrase “photo sphere” — sometimes collapsed to the single word photosphere — to describe 360° spherical photographs. Facebook uses the two word phrase “360 photo” or “360 video” to distinguish between still photographs and videos. In contrast, spherie is a single word that encompasses not only 360° spherical photographs, but 360° spherical videos, 360° spherical rendered images, and 360° spherical rendered animations as well.
Spherie Photography
Below is an example of a spherie photograph I captured of a mushroom while hiking in Yosemite National Park. I placed the spherie camera low to the ground on a special mount I had created, giving a mouse’s perspective of the mushroom. Click and drag the following image to pan around the spherie.
Press the link in the following caption to view the spherie using Google Photos.
You can also view the previous mushroom (mycology) spherie on my Facebook page:
Spherie Videography
A spherie may be a video rather than just a still photograph. I captured the following spherie video while walking through an ancient residential section of the archeologically rich island of Delos, Greece. This spherie was published to my Facebook page. Notice how Facebook seamlessly supports spherie videos directly within their posting viewer.
Spherie Image Rendering
The spherie image at the top of this article is an example of a spherie image rendered using LightWave 3D. Click and drag the following spherie of the Natural History Museum to pan around.
You can view the spherie on my Facebook page:
The following spherie image is an example of a rendering where I mapped some of my spheries onto spheres and rendered those spheres into a spherie. Now that was a mouthful. This spherie was also modelled and rendered using LightWave 3D. Click and drag the following spherie to pan around.
Press the link in the following caption to view the spherie using Google Photos.
You can also view the spherie on my Facebook page:
The following is a spherie rendering of a Tri-Axial Tourbillon I modelled and animated using LightWave 3D for inclusion in my LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition smartwatch custom face. Click and drag the following spherie to pan around.
Press the link in the following caption to view the tourbillon spherie using Google Photos.
This same Tourbillon spherie can be viewed on my Facebook page:
Spherie Animation Rendering
Spherie renderings are not limited to still images. Spherie animations can be rendered and hosted on Facebook as well as on Google YouTube 360.
I created the following arachnid spherie animation using LightWave’s genoma spider walk sample scene. Here is a spherie frame from the animation. Click and drag the following image to pan around the spherie.
Press the link in the following caption to view the spherie using Google Photos.
Here is the arachnid animation on my Facebook page:
Spherie Rendering in LightWave 3D
Spheries can be rendered using many different modelling and rendering software packages. Some of the best-known competing software packages include Modo, Maya, Cinema 4D, Blender, and LightWave 3D. Each is capable of generating the various types of rendered images and rendered animations that can be accepted by Google, Facebook, Kuula, Roundme, Flickr, or other spherie-capable hosting websites.
Each of the above software packages comes with their own set of strengths and weaknesses. I have personally used Modo, Maya, Blender and LightWave 3D for various amounts of time and at various levels of proficiency, but I find myself spending most of my time using LightWave. For anyone considering the purchase of modelling and rendering software you should, of course, carefully consider not only your budget but how you will use the software and where you will be using it. For example, are you trying to get employment with companies that use only Maya. From my personal experience as an amateur, your money is well spent purchasing a license for LightWave; it is one-stop shopping for modelling, rigging, animation, and rendering. LightWave has consistently met all my needs.
In addition, some exciting LightWave developments are underway — including camera extensions such as Ubercam — that simplify and enhance an artist’s ability to create and manipulate spheries.
I wrote an article entitled, “Spheries in LightWave 3D: Creating a Google and Facebook Compatible Spherie in LightWave 3D” for the highly talented artists and technologist who use LightWave 3D for their modelling, animation, and rendering work. A copy of this article is available here:
I posted the article and a set of sample spherie renderings on NewTek’s LightWave news forum.
I also shared my Google+ album, “Spheries in LightWave 3D” that contains a complete collection of the spheries I have rendered using LightWave 3D:
You can see examples of LightWave rendering and animation in some of my Google+ postings.
Spherie Definition
I am not a lexicographer so this may not be the best definition of spherie; I will leave the final definition to the professionals at the Oxford English Dictionary, assuming they even entertain the word.
Spherie
/sfirē/
noun informal
noun: sphery, sfery
informal sferie, selpherie, selphery, selferie, selfery
plural: spheries, sferies, selpheries, selferies
• media (photograph or video) that one has taken (usually of oneself for a selpherie but not necessarily for a spherie) using a 360 degree spherical capable camera and often shared via social media.
“ Selfies are passé, so I am posting my first spherie.”
• a rendering of a 360 degree spherical image/video in a format compatible with 360 degree spherical image/video viewers or 360 degree spherical capable cameras.
• may also be qualified with photo, photograph, video, image, or animation, such as photo spherie, spherie photo, photograph spherie, spherie photograph, video spherie, spherie video, image spherie, spherie image, animation spherie, or spherie animation.
Related Forms
adjective: describing the type of 360 spherical photograph, video, rendered image, or rendered animation such as a spherie photo, spherie photograph, spherie video, spherie image, spherie animation
verb: the act of creating a spherie, either through photographic or video recording or rendering. For example, “I am heading to West Edmonton Mall to spherie the Santa María de la Inmaculada Concepción replica.”
Origin
English sphere (Middle English: from Old French espere, from late Latin sphera, earlier sphaera, from Greek sphaira ‘ball.’) + ie (early form of -y)
Feel free to use the word to help popularize it and help get the word entered into the Oxford English Dictionary.
Summary
This article introduces the spherie (360° spherical photographs, videos, rendered images, and rendered animations) and describes how spheries are supported by Facebook, Google, and many other vendors. I am looking forward to the day that the word spherie is included in the Oxford English Dictionary.
You can see more of my spheries on my Facebook account, my Kuula account, my Google+ account, and in my Medium articles.
