The Urfahraner Herbstmarkt is opening it’s doors on Saturday, September 28th. A part of is the Linz Verändert – Tent, where Ars Electronica is cooperating with the Stadt Linz AG to provide insight on how the city works. PIKA360 is one of the new installations on display and we have talked to the developers to find out what you can do with it.
More pictures from the Linz Verändert – Tent
Long story short: What can the Linz-audience expect from PIKA360?
PIKA360 is a brand-new device capturing 360° panoramas with the touch of a button, including the option to print them out on the spot. Accessing PIKA360 via smartphone not only gives you the impressive, interactive live-preview, but also let’s you share and download the panoramas you take. PIKA360 is ideal to take pictures of a bunch of people and it’s unique.
The audience can expect an interactive experience in 360°, action, fun, thrilil, this is PIKA360. They can print out the pictures in the tent and pick them up immeditatly.
How did you come up with the idea for it, how did you develop it?
Panoramas are most often associated with great landscape-pictures, our idea is to take this technique and put people into the focus. PIKA360 is the tool to capture unique moments in a unique way and also provides an easy and fun way to use this fascinating technology.
We were very fond of the idea and were able to develop a prototype with our very motivated developers-team, photographers, media-designers and web-developers being part of it. And the prototyp scored quite a few nominations for various grants and has been supported by the Austria Wirtschaftsservice Vienna. The feedback has been very positive, so this gives us the motivation to work hard and we are looking at a great future potential.
What separates PIKA360 from various smartphone-apps on the market?
PIKA360 is a unique locations-based system. By pressing one button, a seamless 360° panorama is shot. People around the camera are evenly exposed by the special 360° flashlight, which works both indoors and outdoors and around the clock. The result is a panorama-picture with people, which can be printed and taken home immediatly, or downloaded and shared.
What are the plans for the future?
In Linz we are presented the prototype with it’s new design, this is the first time the public is going to see it. Next on the list is implenting mobile usage via app, creative post-processing and 360° video. We also want to improve the overall quality of the product and make it durable for outdoor-situations.
The topic of the Linz Verändert – Tent is “Energy & Quality of Living”, you can see different takes on how ressources can be used in a more efficient way, find out about alternatives to today’s energy-production and more. The tent is open from September 28th to October 6th, everyday from 10 am to 6 pm, the entry is free.