I have explored assembling lightfields with horizontal only disparity using a circle of cameras. This allows a viewer to move side to side and see parallax, but you can’t move up and down. Surprisingly this works pretty well in VR, and the relative simplicity makes it appealing. But, what would a true 6DOF camera capture look like?

Lytro cinema camera shown above is one arrangement I’ve seen, basically a large square of cameras, so both side to side and up down views are taken and combined. I actually got to see this camera in person at their Mountain Vie headquarters several years ago. What about a camera sphere? If I move a camera along the surface of a sphere can I assemble with parallax in both directions? Sphere should be the same and I can envision a way to move a single camera throw a polar coordinate space easier than a planar space.

Research

Fyusion – SIGGRAPH 2019 presentation.

Lightfield-forum.com– Now defunct (2021)

Google Odyssey Rotating Lightfield Camera. (this is what I had in mind, but howto process the images?)