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VR180

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VR180 is a stereoscopic video and photo format, introduced by Google and YouTube in June 2017, that records the half of the scene in front of the camera, a 180-degree field of view, with a separate image for each eye. It was designed for a new class of point-and-shoot cameras with two side-by-side fisheye lenses. On a flat screen a VR180 video plays as an ordinary video, and in a head-mounted display it is shown in 3D, so that "near things look near, and far things appear far", in the words of YouTube's announcement.[1]

Compared with full 360-degree video, which usually needs a rig of several cameras whose images must be stitched together, VR180 needs only two cameras with fisheye lenses and records stereo depth by default; in typical 360-degree video the action is usually in one particular direction.[2][3] Few consumer cameras for the format reached the market, and by September 2019 Variety reported that the format had lost key hardware partners.[2] VR180 videos can still be viewed on later headsets, for example in Google Photos on Android XR devices, and Apple's visionOS 26 supports stereoscopic 180-degree video from cameras such as Canon's EOS VR system.[4][5]

Reviewed 6 October 2026. All claims checked against the cited Google, YouTube, Apple and Canon sources, press reports and the five cited papers. About review dates.

How it works

Capture

A VR180 camera has two wide-angle lenses placed side by side. Google's specification describes VR180 cameras as "a new category of VR camera that use two wide angle cameras to capture the world as you see it with point and shoot simplicity".[6] The two cameras sit a fixed interpupillary distance apart and capture a 180-degree view synchronously, so each eye receives its own image and the viewer perceives depth through binocular disparity.[7] Because the two lenses face the same direction, a VR180 rig needs no stitching between cameras, which Lavrushkin et al. describe as a problem that "remains unsolved for 360-degree videos".[3] The trade-off is that the format stores the view for only a single hemisphere, so nothing behind the camera is recorded.[3]

Writing at the format's launch, Road to VR noted that 180-degree stereoscopic video, already used by NextVR for its sports broadcasts, allows better resolution than 3D 360 video at a lesser or equal file size, and that when the action is mostly forward-facing the rear half of a 360 video tends to go unused.[8] Google's specification states that VR180 cameras capture less than a full 360-degree field of view and that retaining the original pixel density of the camera sensors is important for high pixel density in VR viewing.[6]

Video file format

VR180 video is an MP4 file that carries two kinds of metadata. The first is a static projection, encoded with Google's open Spherical Video V2 metadata, which maps the pixels of each frame to directions on a sphere. The second is a dynamic orientation stream in a Camera Motion Metadata (camm) track, which records how the camera rotated during recording.[6] The Spherical Video V2 specification stores this information in an sv3d box, with an optional st3d box whose stereo_mode field signals a monoscopic, top-bottom, left-right, right-left or custom stereo layout.[9]

For camera output, the VR180 specification requires the mesh projection type of Spherical Video V2, the most general type, which works for fisheye images. The camera stores the raw fisheye pixels for the two eyes side by side (left-right) or one above the other (over-under), and a separate projection mesh for each eye tells the player how to map those pixels back to 3D directions. Google states that this avoids an expensive reprojection step on the camera, saving production cost and power, and preserves the sensor's pixel density; a typical mesh is a 40 x 40 grid. The specification prefers the landscape left-right layout over top-bottom, for compatibility with streaming services optimized for 16:9 video.[6] Players identify a VR180 video by the presence and content of its Spherical Video V2 metadata.[6]

The camera motion track exists because many VR180 videos are shot handheld. Each sample stores the rotation from the camera's coordinate system to the world coordinate system as an angle-axis vector, obtained by on-device sensor fusion of the IMU readings, and the player renders each frame at the orientation at which it was captured, which keeps the distant background static. Google wrote that its experiments showed that such stabilized viewing "significantly reduces the motion sickness issue for VR", and warned that poor rotation data, including an incorrect gravity vector, can itself cause sickness or disorientation.[6]

Fisheye files straight from the camera are hard to edit in ordinary video software. Google's VR180 Creator tool (2018) therefore converted raw fisheye footage to a standard equirectangular projection for editing, and re-injected the VR180 metadata afterwards so that the result would play on YouTube or Google Photos in 2D or VR.[10] In a 2021 study of 1,000 VR180 videos downloaded from YouTube, all frames were in equirectangular projection.[3]

Photo format

VR180 photos use Google's VR Photo Format, which Google says was pioneered by Cardboard Camera.[11] A VR photo is an ordinary JPEG whose main image is the left-eye view. The right-eye image and an optional audio clip are stored as base64-encoded data in the file's XMP metadata, and GPano tags describe the panorama's geometry. Ordinary image viewers display the file as a flat picture of the left-eye view, and the files use the extension .vr.jpg.[12]

History

Announcement (2017)

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced VR180 at VidCon in June 2017.[8] In a blog post on 22 June 2017, YouTube product manager Frank Rodriguez said the format had been developed with Google's Daydream team. VR180 videos would play in 3D on Google Cardboard, Daydream and PlayStation VR, support for editing in Adobe Premiere Pro was coming, and the format would support livestreaming. Cameras from YI, Lenovo and LG were announced as being on the way, and a certification program for other manufacturers had Z CAM among its first partners. YouTube said the cameras would be "as easy to use as point-and-shoot cameras, for around the same price", and eligible creators could borrow VR180 cameras from YouTube Spaces.[1] Road to VR noted that the first sample videos were delivered at up to 4K resolution and 30 frames per second, and that on ordinary monitors VR180 videos are shown as 16:9 videos without the ability to change the point of view.[8]

Cameras and software (2018)

Lenovo and YI announced their consumer VR180 cameras at CES on 9 January 2018. Lenovo's Mirage Camera had two 13-megapixel fisheye cameras with a 180 x 180 degree field of view and came in Wi-Fi and LTE versions; YI's Horizon VR180 was to record 3D video at 5.7K and 30 frames per second.[13][14] 9to5Google reported that Z CAM and Panasonic were offering VR180 devices aimed at professionals.[13]

On 9 April 2018 Google published the technical specifications so that any developer or manufacturer could create VR180 content. For video it extended the Spherical Video Metadata V2 standard with mesh projection and the Camera Motion Metadata track; for photos it reused the VR Photo Format.[11] On 4 May 2018, coinciding with the launch of the Lenovo Mirage Solo headset and the Mirage Camera, Google released a VR180 mobile app for Android and iOS that set up the cameras, transferred photos and videos to a phone or the cloud, and livestreamed to YouTube.[15] The desktop VR180 Creator tool for macOS and Linux followed on 15 June 2018.[10]

Decline (2019 onward)

In September 2019 Variety reported that Lenovo had stopped selling the Mirage Camera in the US, where it was sold out on Lenovo's website and at a number of other retailers; a Lenovo spokesperson said it was still sold in select markets. The Horizon VR180 had been shown at CES in January 2018 and was supposed to go on sale later that year, but it did not reach stores in 2018; a YI spokesperson told the publication that the company had no plans to launch it in 2019 either and was concentrating on home security and in-car cameras. LG never announced a VR180 camera. Google had last updated the VR180 app in December 2018, and a Google spokesperson said the company had no updates on VR180 to share.[2] Variety noted that VR180 videos were still being uploaded to YouTube every day, often shot on professional cameras such as the US$3,000 Z CAM K1 Pro or exported in VR180 from 360-degree cameras such as the Insta360 Pro, and that Google had quietly open-sourced the technology needed to build VR180 cameras earlier in 2019.[2]

That open-source release, the google/vr180 repository, contains a reference Android VR180 camera app, factory calibration tools and validators for VR video and photo files under the Apache 2.0 license. Google archived the repository, making it read-only, on 29 December 2022.[16] The Google hardware platforms that launched VR180 playback also ended: the Daydream View headset was no longer sold from 15 October 2019, and Google's VR developer site was archived with content last updated in 2019.[17]

Cameras

The following cameras were made or marketed for VR180 or for stereoscopic 180-degree capture. Specifications are as published at announcement.

Camera Announced Capture Status and notes
Lenovo Mirage Camera 9 January 2018 (CES)[14] Two 13 MP fisheye cameras, 180 x 180 degree field of view; Qualcomm Snapdragon 626, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB storage plus microSD; 2,200 mAh battery rated for about two hours[13] Launched May 2018 alongside the VR180 app;[15] announced at under US$300;[13] no preview screen, a phone acts as the viewfinder;[18] no longer sold in the US by September 2019[2]
YI Horizon VR180 9 January 2018 (CES)[13] 3D video at 5.7K, 30 frames per second; 2.2-inch 640 x 360 rotatable touchscreen[13] Not released; YI told Variety in September 2019 that it had no plans to launch it that year[2]
Z CAM K1 Pro Not stated in cited sources High-end 180-degree camera Cited by Variety in 2019 as a US$3,000 camera used by professionals for VR180; Z CAM was an early VR180 certification partner[2][1]
Insta360 EVO 13 March 2019[19] Folding two-lens camera: 180-degree 3D when unfolded, 360-degree when folded; 5.7K video[19] US$420 at announcement[19]
Canon RF5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye 6 October 2021[20] Interchangeable lens with two fisheye optics 60 mm apart that record both images on a single sensor; 8K stereoscopic 3D on the EOS R5[20] Part of Canon's EOS VR System; EOS VR Utility converts the dual fisheye clips to equirectangular[20]

Playback and platforms

At launch, VR180 videos could be watched in 3D through Cardboard, Daydream View or the Mirage Solo, and in 2D through Google Photos and YouTube on phones and computers.[13][11] PlayStation VR was also named as a supported headset for YouTube playback.[1] YouTube converts an uploaded VR180 video so that it can also be watched on a PC or phone without a headset.[18]

Later platforms read 180-degree stereo files as well. Google's help page for Google Photos on Android XR devices states that "You can view VR180 videos" and lists 360 and VR180 media among the app's immersive viewing options.[5] In visionOS 26, announced at WWDC in June 2025, Apple added the Apple Projected Media Profile (APMP), which supports 180-degree, 360-degree and wide field-of-view video from consumer cameras. Apple describes 180-degree video as using a "half-equirectangular projection" in which the horizontal axis of the frame spans minus 90 to plus 90 degrees, and names Canon's EOS VR system as an example of a way to "capture and process stereoscopic 180 video". For files that do not yet carry APMP signaling, AVFoundation can recognize 180-degree or 360-degree assets with Spherical Metadata V1 or V2 signaling, and the macOS avconvert utility can convert them. Apple recommends encoding stereoscopic 180 video with MV-HEVC for delivery to visionOS.[4]

Relation to other formats

Lavrushkin et al. describe the main difference between VR180 and conventional 360-degree or spherical video as VR180 storing the view for only one hemisphere.[3] Most 360-degree video is monoscopic, because shooting stereoscopic spherical video needs complex multi-camera rigs; VR180 is stereoscopic by default.[3]

Apple's spatial video is also stereoscopic, but Apple classes it with 2D and 3D video that use a rectilinear projection, whereas 180-degree video uses the half-equirectangular projection.[4] Apple Immersive Video is Apple's own format, introduced with Apple Vision Pro, which the company describes as "180-degree, three-dimensional 8K recordings captured with Spatial Audio".[21]

Research

Stereoscopic quality

Researchers at Lomonosov Moscow State University analyzed 1,000 VR180 videos collected from YouTube up to early 2020. The authors wrote that, to their knowledge, no earlier study had measured the stereoscopic quality of VR180 videos. They converted each frame to a cube map, measured disparity between the two views, and estimated eight parameters: positive and negative parallax, color mismatch, vertical parallax, rotation mismatch, scale mismatch, sharpness mismatch and channel mismatch. Most of the videos showed at least one stereoscopic artifact, and the authors concluded that VR180 production needs stereoscopic quality control. The distortion levels did not depend on a video's view count, release date or duration.[3] The study also noted a property specific to the format: because each view sits in front of its own eye, zero parallax places an object at infinity rather than at a screen plane, so VR180 videos should have little positive parallax, which would put objects "beyond infinity".[3]

S. V. Lavrushkin later described a software system that automatically detects color, sharpness, geometric (vertical shift, rotation and scale) and channel mismatches in VR180 video. It uses disparity maps, motion vectors and neural-network classifiers or regressors, and produces reports that can be built into post-production pipelines.[22]

Compression

The two wide views of VR180 produce large amounts of data. Sivakumar, Vishwanath and Rose of the University of California, Santa Barbara, in work partly supported by Google, noted that standard multi-view coders such as the multi-view extension of HEVC predict one view from the other by shifting blocks in a flat projected frame, and that projection warping makes this inefficient. They proposed disparity compensation performed on the sphere: when the viewpoint moves from one camera to the other, points in the scene appear to move along geodesics that all intersect at the two points where the axis connecting the two viewpoints pierces the sphere. Their method reported significant bitrate savings.[7]

Production and applications

A 2025 case study by researchers at Curtin University's HIVE documented the post-production of the VR180 3D short film Love Letter to Skating, shot on a Canon EOS R5 C with the Canon dual fisheye lens. The native 8K dual-fisheye footage was converted to equirectangular with Canon's EOS VR Utility, rectified in Stereoscopic Movie Maker to correct the alignment errors that the authors say every natively filmed two-lens stereoscopic recording has, then edited in Adobe Premiere together with sound, music, graphics and depth-composited computer graphics.[23]

VR180 has also been used as a research medium. A 2026 study in Urban Science tested VR180 for evaluating urban park landscapes. In a pilot with 232 participants, VR180 outperformed two-dimensional photographs in perceptual realism and psychological perception and was a relatively good substitute for on-site evaluation, with binocular 3D video doing better than binocular 3D photographs. A main experiment with 280 participants then used VR180 to measure physiological stress responses to six types of bamboo landscape.[24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Frank Rodriguez (2017-06-22). "The world as you see it with VR180". YouTube Official Blog. YouTube. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/the-world-as-you-see-it-with-vr180/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Janko Roettgers (2019-09-23). "Google's VR180 Format Stalls After Camera Manufacturers Pull Back". Variety. https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/google-vr180-roadblock-yi-lenovo-cameras-1203346163/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Sergey Lavrushkin, Ivan Molodetskikh, Konstantin Kozhemyakov, Dmitriy Vatolin (2021). "Stereoscopic quality assessment of 1,000 VR180 videos using 8 metrics". Electronic Imaging (IS&T International Symposium on Electronic Imaging 2021, Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XXXII), pp. 350-1 to 350-7. Society for Imaging Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2470-1173.2021.2.SDA-350. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Learn about the Apple Projected Media Profile (WWDC25 session 297)". Apple Developer. Apple. 2025-06. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/297/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Use Google Photos on your Android XR device". Android XR Help. Google. https://support.google.com/android-xr/answer/16667814?hl=en. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 "VR180 Video Format". google/spatial-media (GitHub). Google. https://github.com/google/spatial-media/blob/master/docs/vr180.md. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Kruthika Koratti Sivakumar, Bharath Vishwanath, Kenneth Rose (2020). "Geodesic Disparity Compensation for Inter-View Prediction in VR180". 2020 IEEE International Conference on Visual Communications and Image Processing (VCIP), pp. 367-370. IEEE. doi:10.1109/VCIP49819.2020.9301750. https://scl.ece.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/publications/298.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Scott Hayden (2017-06-23). "Google to Bring 3D 180 'Point-and-Shoot' Cameras to Vloggers this Winter". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/google-bring-3d-180-point-shoot-cameras-vloggers-winter/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  9. ↑ "Spherical Video V2 RFC". google/spatial-media (GitHub). Google. https://github.com/google/spatial-media/blob/master/docs/spherical-video-v2-rfc.md. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Erik Ackermann (2018-06-15). "Introducing VR180 Creator, simplifying the video editing process". The Keyword (Google blog). Google. https://blog.google/products/google-ar-vr/introducing-vr180-creator-simple-video-editing/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Changchang Wu (2018-04-09). "How to publish VR180". The Keyword (Google blog). Google. https://blog.google/products/google-ar-vr/how-publish-vr180/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  12. ↑ "Cardboard Camera VR Photo Format". Google VR (Google for Developers). Google. https://developers.google.com/vr/reference/cardboard-camera-vr-photo-format. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 Abner Li (2018-01-09). "Google's point-and-shoot VR180 cameras from Lenovo, YI announced at CES". 9to5Google. https://9to5google.com/2018/01/09/google-vr180-cameras-lenovo-yi/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "From Pocket to PC to Home: Lenovo's CES 2018 Lineup Makes Reality Better". Lenovo StoryHub. Lenovo. 2018-01-09. https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/from-pocket-to-pc-to-home-lenovos-ces-2018-lineup-makes-reality-better/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Sarah Perez (2018-05-04). "Google's VR180 cameras get their own app that live streams to YouTube". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/04/googles-vr180-cameras-get-their-own-app-that-live-streams-to-youtube/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  16. ↑ "google/vr180". GitHub. Google. https://github.com/google/vr180. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  17. ↑ "360° Media". Google VR (Google for Developers). Google. https://developers.google.com/vr/discover/360-degree-media. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Kevin Carbotte (2018-01-09). "Lenovo Mirage VR Camera Offers 3D, 180-Degree Capture And Daydream Integration". Tom's Hardware. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/lenovo-mirage-camera-3d-180-degrees-daydream,36259.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Michael Zhang (2019-03-13). "Insta360 EVO is a Folding Camera That Shoots Both 360 and 180 3D". PetaPixel. https://petapixel.com/2019/03/13/insta360-evo-is-a-folding-camera-that-shoots-both-360-and-180-3d/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 "Virtual Reality Through a New Lens: Canon Introduces Its First Dual Fisheye Lens for Stereoscopic 3D 180° VR Capture in 8K". Canon Canada. Canon Canada Inc.. 2021-10-06. https://www.canon.ca/About-Canon/News/Press-Releases/2021/2021-OCT-06-RF-DUAL-FISHEYE-LENS-STEREOSCOPIC-3D-180-VR-CAPTURE-8K.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  21. ↑ "Apple Vision Pro available in the U.S. on February 2". Apple Newsroom. Apple. 2024-01-08. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-vision-pro-available-in-the-us-on-february-2/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  22. ↑ S. V. Lavrushkin (2025). "A software system for automated assessment of stereoscopic distortions in VR180 videos". Numerical Methods and Programming, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 340-365. https://doi.org/10.26089/NumMet.v26r323. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  23. ↑ Andrew J. Woods, Daniel Adams, Cassandra Edwards, Kerreen Ely-Harper, Andrea Rassell (2025). "Case Study: Love Letter to Skating - VR180 stereoscopic post-production workflow". Electronic Imaging, vol. 37, no. 2 (Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XXXVI), pp. 332-1 to 332-7. Society for Imaging Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.2352/EI.2025.37.2.SDA-332. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  24. ↑ Meiyun Huang, Zhiwen Deng, Lingyan Chen, Yushan Zheng (2026-07-24). "Assessing the Stress-Relief Benefits of Bamboo Landscapes in Urban Parks: Using VR180 as a Presentation Medium". Urban Science, vol. 10, no. 8, article 425. MDPI. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci10080425. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
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