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About The Plug-in Community Guide

This document started as an internal document that Craig Oda wrote to help Jesse Casman with meetings at CES 2018 in Las Vegas. Craig and Jesse found out that Ricoh was planning to announce a radical, new strategy for 360 cameras. In January of 2018, Ricoh announced plans to open up the internal Android operating system to external developers.

We immediately saw the potential to change how people approached VR and AR.

At CES, we gained access to unlocked THETA V cameras under the closed beta program that Ricoh offered developers. As we worked with the community on building applications, this document grew.

Craig

After growing up in the US, I started my career in Tokyo, where I was part of the core team that developed the first public-access Internet system in Asia. I co-founded the Tokyo Linux Users Group, served as first president, and co-authored a book for O'Reilly Japan on adding Japanese language support to Linux. After selling my Internet business to a large US firm, I moved to the US to start the US office of a Linux company and helped to raise $96M in venture funding. I stayed in Palo Alto and continue to work with cool technology companies changing the world.

VR is not new, but the business opportunities for VR are new, enabled by cheaper and better technology. Although there's buzz about the entertainment potential of VR, the main opportunity may be in how people communicate large amounts of visual and auditory data with each other. We are overwhelmed by media. We need interactive ways to assess and focus in on the details that are meaningful. 360 media offers a way to capture and work with large amounts of information. Join us as we navigate, define, and build this new paradigm.

Jesse

Hello from San Francisco! This is Jesse (jcasman@oppkey.com), I've been working with Craig on the theta360.guide since 2015. We build projects and tutorials, connect with developers like you, and try to have a good time while we're doing it. Part of that is building usable documentation like this THETA V Plugin Development Community Guide! The Guide is constantly being updated as we test more and learn more. If you notice something that could be fixed or added, we'd love to hear from you. It's a community effort! The RICOH THETA is an extremely cool platform for development, with potential in so many different industries. If you're doing something in 360, let us know, and maybe consider adding it here to help out others.